Eternal Forest Manifesto, 2019
Eternal Forest is a multidisciplinary art project creating 1,000 forest sanctuaries to be protected for 1,000 years by local communities as forest guardians. Founded by artist Evgenia Emets, Eternal Forest is growing into a global organization in collaboration with artists, scientists, cultural agents, tree-planting organizations, and land partners.
This project enables the creation of artistic, experiential trails in green spaces, such as forests and parks, which encompasses artwork of various mediums such as drawing, poetry, sounds, and video.
Eternal Forest invites us to question how art can support a culture of care and reciprocity in service of both a human and more-than-human life. Shifting from short-term to long-term multigeneration-thinking, the project shows how forest time, the act of tapping into the expansive lifetime of an old-growth forest, helps humans transcend the barriers to steward green spaces beyond our temporal existence.
Eternal Forest creates a legacy of future old-growth forests in the present, connected to a worldwide network of places for biodiversity and humans to thrive where our circle of governance and decision-making includes both human and more-than-human beings.
The artworks presented at ALTER ECO include Eternal Forest Manifesto (2019-2024) – a calligraphic poetry piece on paper in the form of a scroll written as an invocation piece to celebrate forest sanctuaries; as well as recent artworks on paper My Time is Not Your Time (2024), Eternal Forest Manifesto (4-panel calligraphy) (2024), Who Are Our Ancestors? (2024) and the short film Wild Pendulum (2024) created in the Split Rock Arts residency in the Summer of 2024, alongside an experiential artistic trail in the protected forest in the Adirondacks near lake Champlain.
Eternal Forest Manifesto – a 4-panel calligraphic artwork reimagining a fragment of original Eternal Forest Manifesto. The visual form of the drawing is inspired by the forms encountered on numerous walks in the Adirondacks forests: the shape of the beaver home, or the form of an ancient tree hollow.
Exhibition view, Whitcomb’s Gallery, Whallonsburg, 2024 / Eternal Forest Manifesto (4-panel calligraphy) (2024) and Eternal Forest Manifesto (2019-2024)
Eternal Forest Manifesto – a calligraphic poetry piece on paper in the form of a scroll written as an invocation piece to celebrate forest sanctuaries. This poetry piece was originally written in 2019 when the idea of Eternal Forest Sanctuary had just emerged. Eternal Forest Manifesto was created as both a large exhibition scroll meant for display in museum and gallery spaces and as a small forest scroll on fabric, which has been read out loud in forests and has travelled to various communities. One functions as a signifier, the other as a tool. In 2024 the small forest scroll was read one last time during a communal forest experience in the Adirondacks. The scroll was then buried in the Spirit Sanctuary, a green burial site, as a symbolic offering to the land, to humankind, to our more-than-human ancestors, and to future generations.
The burial of Eternal Forest Manifesto small forest scroll in the Spirit Sanctuary, 2024
Wild Pendulum, single channel HD video, 3min 30, 2024
Who are our ancestors?
Are they the seeds of white pines seeing the darkest of hours?
Are they the four-legged brothers walking this path many winters before us?
Are they incessantly sculpted oracles questioning the matters of aliveness?
Are they ethereal children of the neverworld invisible to our rational blindness?
Who are our ancestors?
Are they photosynthesising bodies transpiring clouds of co-emerging complexity?
Are they muted-colored lichens creeping outwards in slow explosions?
Are they the birthplaces of rivers – spelling the land’s primordial language?
Are they sovereign beings porous to each other’s creative agencies?
Are they forever folding rocks – the true governors of wild ways?
Who are our ancestors?
More about the project at Split Rock Arts
Eternal Forest at Split Rock Arts is a natural continuation of ongoing work in forest restoration, protection, and raising awareness about natural biodiverse forests and their preservation through the arts, culture, and education.
A project combining an art experience and trail in the forest, forest installation, and an exhibition as a result of an art residency at Split Rock Arts, in Whallonsburg, Adirondacks, NY State, USA.
The poetry and art experience and trail runs through protected land, connecting the Spirit Sanctuary and the Black Kettle trail, part of the Wildway Corridor aiming to connect parts of privately protected forests to the larger Adirondacks State Park. The trail is inspired by the biodiversity, wildlife in the protected forests and the conservation efforts in the area.
A pop-up exhibition of work produced during the Split Rock Arts residency by both Evgenia Emets and Split Rock Arts founder Jean Brennan was installed for the weekend at Whitcomb’s Art Gallery during 27&28 of July. The exhibition combined visual works and two films, one of them by Evgenia Emets created while in residency in the Adirondacks.
Filmed in the forests of the Adirondacks State Park on the Champlain Area Trails, ‘Wild Pendulum’ draws inspiration from the idea of ‘forever wild’, the creation of the Wildway Corridor in the Champlain Valley, the biodiversity of the region and the conservation efforts of the local organisations.
It follows the poem: ‘Who are our ancestors?’ written by Evgenia Emets during the art residency at Split Rock Arts.
Eternal Forest art experience and trail in collaboration with Jean Brennan, Split Rock Arts, Spirit Sanctuary and Black Kettle Trail, 2024 Photographs by Catherine Seidenverg and Evgenia Emets
This work is realised with the support and participation of the host organisation, Split Rock Arts, in collaboration with the Eddy Foundation and the Whallonsburg Grange, and inspired by the work of the Old-Growth Forest Network. Special thank you to Champlain Area Trails and Spirit Sanctuary for the support and for giving us access to create an artistic-poetic interpretation of forever wild places!
This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts.