Cortada traveled by icebreaker to place 360 flags in a circle around the North Pole in 2008, each flag depicting the name of one of 360 endangered animals. By planting the flags, Cortada was to reclaim the North Pole for nature and for our planet’s biodiversity across 360 degrees in the world below.

Unfortunately upon entering the icebreaker’s port city of Murmansk, the Russian Government confiscated Cortada’s 360 white flags.

Cortada boarded the ship without the flags. During the four and a half day journey north, Cortada wrote the scientific name of all 360 animals on two pieces of canvas.

On June 29, 2008, Cortada laid the canvas panels on the ice at the North Pole, aligning the animals’ names with the degree of the habitat in which they struggle for survival.