{"id":280635,"date":"2026-04-22T18:28:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T18:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/280635\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T18:28:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T18:28:13","slug":"san-francisco-artists-exhibit-in-chicago-is-an-sos-to-save-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/280635\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco artist&#8217;s exhibit in Chicago is an SOS to save the planet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A San Francisco artist is showing off a call to climate action in a special exhibit in Chicago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Under Pressure&#8221; by Mexican-born and San Francisco-based artist Ana Teresa Fern\u00e1ndez is now on exhibit at Chicago&#8217;s National Museum of Mexican Art. The four-year project is meant to ignite a change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;This white balloon is supposed to signify the globe or a glacier,&#8221; Fern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Wearing a stiletto, Fern\u00e1ndez used the weight of her own foot to mimic how human activity is pushing Mother Earth to the breaking point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Everyone knows balloons; they understand the elasticity that they pull, they pull, they pull, until it finally ruptures,&#8221; Fern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Earth Day 2026: <a href=\"https:\/\/abc7news.com\/post\/earth-day-2026-what-can-do-promote-conservation-climate-action\/18940733\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:What you can do to promote conservation, climate action;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;What you can do to promote conservation, climate action&quot;}\" class=\"link \">What you can do to promote conservation, climate action<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Under Pressure&#8221; shows how <a href=\"https:\/\/abc7news.com\/tag\/climate-ready\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:climate change;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;climate change&quot;}\" class=\"link \">climate change<\/a> can be seen, felt and heard, but it also captures a deafening silence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It is said that in the next hundred years we will be losing around 7,000 languages,&#8221; Fern\u00e1ndez said. &#8220;And so creating &#8216;shh,&#8217; which is a sound, and it&#8217;s onomatopoeic, it goes across hundreds of languages. It needs no translation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">And from from her detailed oil paintings, to a hose she transformed and sculpted into a silver-feathered symbol called a Quetzalcoatl, the constant theme of the exhibit is water.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Water is life. I have always been really connected to water. And I think that when I make art, I, oftentimes, I am both the driver and the vehicle,&#8221; Fern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">And while the art on the walls of the museum reflects damage done to the planet, Fern\u00e1ndez took her vision outside, using nature and the power of community to make a call to action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I knew that there&#8217;s all these issues surrounding the Great Lakes, especially in Chicago, what the Great Lakes mean to the residents here and the access to water,&#8221; Fern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/abc7chicago.com\/videoClip\/18886141\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:On April 11;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;On April 11&quot;}\" class=\"link \">On April 11<\/a>, Fernandez rallied hundreds of people to bring her art to life along Chicago&#8217;s lakefront, sending out a giant S.O.S. to the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Artist Ana Teresa Fern\u00e1ndez led a massive SOS call to save our planet on Ohio Street Beach Saturday, April 11.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">She called it a social monument, and she&#8217;s done it once before at Laguna Beach in Southern California.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I offer people to hold mirrors, and they place them in the shape of the Morse code S.O.S., which is three dashes, three dots, and we place them along the beach. And we ask participants to hold up the mirrors so that they may speak in light,&#8221; Fern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">That message of extreme desperation defines &#8220;Under Pressure,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I&#8217;m asking the community to plead for the environment, save our souls, save our shorelines, save our species,&#8221; Fern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Under Pressure&#8221; is open now at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago and runs through August 2.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"ct:story;elm:img;itc:0;\" class=\"stretched-box\" href=\"https:\/\/abc7news.com\/abc-news-live-local-watch\/11513295\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/131c44567cfd550c1c93df1368fb6896.jpeg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">If you&#8217;re on the ABC7 News app, <a href=\"https:\/\/abc7news.com\/abc-news-live-local-watch\/11513295\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:click here to watch live;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;click here to watch live&quot;}\" class=\"link \">click here to watch live<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A San Francisco artist is showing off a call to climate action in a special exhibit in Chicago.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[120792,4419,19151,120791,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-280635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-ana-teresa-fernandez","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-climate-action","11":"tag-national-museum-of-mexican-art","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","14":"tag-san-francisco-news","15":"tag-sf","16":"tag-sf-headlines","17":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}