Laura Carisa Gardea (She/Her/Ella) is a Chicanix multidisciplinary artist, operatic coloratura

soprano, sustainability designer and advocate leaning into her Indigenous Mexica raíces for

inspiration to her work linking the arts and cultural diversity to biodiversity.

Trained in opera at UNCSA and holding a Masters of Sustainability from Wake Forest

University, she is a core organizer of the Climate Refugees Pavilion UN COP30 team, Trustee &

cofounder of the Global Climate Impact and served as the inaugural North American Regional

Youth Lead for the UN Arts & Culture Working Group, uplifting the voices of artists and cultural

workers in global policy at the United Nations across both ECOSOC and UNFCCC ecosystems.

As the lead singer and Artistic Director of Proxevita band, she merges dream pop,

shoegaze, and sound healing with harmonic activism of sustainability culture, Indigenous

and ‘solar punk’ ethos. Proxevita, has performed at both UN COP28 and COP29 as leaders of

artistic advocacy for the climate.

Founder of the @southsidefoodforestwsnc the heart of her work and a model recognized

as a specially-accredited invitee to the UN Summit of the Future for actively uplifting 10 of

the 17 UN SDGs. This sustainable agroforestry model was also recently presented by Laura

at UN COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Laura also is a member of the Arts, Culture & Faith

imPACT coalition for the UN Summit of the Future and is the founder of Food to

Fashion Sustainable Fashion Showcase with Sustainable Fashion Week US and the WS

Fashion Week which was last spotted as a pop-up at the UN Summit of the Future.

Laura integrates arts-empowered, and community-driven permaculture for climate

justice, activating intergenerational communities, uplifting actionable hope and using

music and advocacy to drive systemic change on global and grassroots levels.