Xiuhtezcatl Martinez: At the Forefront of Climate Change

“The most important thing we can do is change . . . the way we’re talking about climate change. It’s not a left liberal partisan environmental problem. It’s a human issue, it’s a human crisis. It involves and connects every person on this planet.”—Xiuhtezcatl Martinez in Rolling Stone

Join us for an evening with Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, an eighteen-year-old indigenous climate activist, hip hop artist, and voice from the front lines of a global youth-led environmental movement. Currently the youth director of Earth Guardians, Martinez has been advocating for the environment since he was six years old. He is the winner of a United States Community Service Award from President Obama, the Peace First Prize, the Nickelodeon Halo Award, the Captain Planet Award, and the Children’s Climate Prize Award, and was the youngest of 24 national change-makers chosen to serve on President Obama’s youth council. In conjunction with the USC Fisher Museum exhibition Earthworks: Mapping the Anthropocene, Martinez will perform activist hip hop with his sister, Isa Roske; speak about his experiences as a youth activist, from winning moratoriums on fracking in his home state of Colorado to addressing the UN General Assembly; and talk with USC professor Manuel Pastor about global youth movements to—quite literally—save the world.

Presented by USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative. Organized by the USC Fisher Museum of Art. Co-sponsored by USC El Centro Chicano and USC Environmental Student Assembly.