Eternal Forest creates a series of Art Trails in forests, parks, and gardens. You can experience Eternal Forest Art Trails as an immersive contemplative journey on specific dates or via later booking for a group of people. Below are examples of existing art trails and experiences.
Botanical Garden of Porto – Rewilding Time
Rewilding Time is an immersive art experience and walk in the Botanical Garden of Porto extending the exhibition at the Hall of Biodiversity into the space of the trees, forests and ecosystems. Imagining this garden at the service of the forest. As a seed of larger biodiversity, rich relationships and connectivity among all the species inhabiting the forest. Connecting the species and fragments of the ecosystem found here in the Botanical Garden of Porto and the forest ecosystem you can experience in certain parts of Portugal, such as protected areas of Corno do Bico and Peneda Geres National Park. How are the Botanical Garden and the forest related? How do they respond to each other? How does a contemporary botanical garden play a role in forest regeneration? How can we use the garden as a critical space for thinking and imagining a changing landscape? How can we inhabit it as a multispecies platform for the political standing of the forest beings, offering them a space for expressing their voices and offering us a space for rethinking our relationships to biodiversity? https://eternalforest.earth/index.php/art/rewilding-time/
Photos Diogo Meira
Plant Time, Crystal Palace Garden, Municipal Gallery, Porto
Art experience and walk on the 18th of May – the International day of Fascination with plants at the Crystal Palace Garden organised by Municipal Gallery, Porto. The walk celebrated its fauna and flora, in a joint exaltation of different life forms through the perspective of time and our perceptions of time – organic and cyclical, time of nature, time of plants and forests and human-dominated structured and linear time experienced through the landscape architecture of the garden and the stories of plants. Marking the International Day for the Fascination of Plants, we revisited the Cedar of Lebanon, the Acanthus, the Ginkgo Biloba and other ancient trees, accompanied by poems by Emets, but also by authors such as Giovanni Aloi, Ellen Lima, Stefano Mancuso, Gille Clément, Gilgamesh Epic and Evgenia’s own poetry and storytelling.
Photos Diogo Meira
Monsanto Forest Park Lisbon – Finding the Mother Tree
A guided walk through Monsanto Forest Park in Lisbon, discovering natural landmarks, history and biodiversity of Monsanto through art and poetry specially written from the perspective of trees, processes and elements of the ecosystem. Finding the Mother Tree is a contemplative practice with the Mother Tree – inspired by the book and research of Suzanne Simard and other scientists but also the regenerative movement in Portugal and beyond. This is a 2.5-hour experience of a young forest with a vision of an old-growth forest 1000 years into the future. Tea ceremony and sharing circle.
Monsanto Forest Park Lisbon – Forest is Light
Forest is Light explores the themes of the forest as a receiver and transformer of light, the meaning of shadow and light, and the role of natural forest biodiversity in human evolution and ecology. The trail, artistic experiences and reflection sessions within the Biodiversity Space, the place the natural forest ecosystem research and investigation, offer an immersion in the rich biodiversity of the forest through art and poetry. A reflection and a drawing session are followed by a sharing circle and a drink based on natural ingredients taking an active part in the process of photosynthesis.
Estufa Fria de Lisboa – Religar
The artistic experience Religar at Estufa Fria focuses on various plants that have an important ecological, cultural, historical and spiritual significance in their respective places of origin. But also whose significance and sphere of influence extend beyond their home.
The art experience takes participants on an immersive contemplative walk through Estufa Fria, with the invitation to be in the presence of each plant: through poetry, and storytelling we arrive into the space of deep listening to the plants communicating their messages and their essence with us. The experience also includes a ceremony and a practice of sitting with a plant followed by a reflection and drawing session.
Idanha-a-Velha – Pela Terra
Being Land?
Installation and immersive art experience, 2023
Ser Terra? Was commissioned by Pela Terra – gathering for art and ecology embedded into a regenerative project Idanha-a-Vida at Idanha-a-Velha. Evgenia Emets offered a contemplative walk of art and poetry following the natural landmarks, an installation in the land and a participatory ceremony.
All the poetry is written from the perspective and in the voice of the land, posting a series of questions to the participants. These questions are written with calligraphy on the flags which are installed on the trail alongside other artists’ interventions.
The project brings the audience to face questions concerned with ecology, our role in the time of the earth, our relationship with the wilderness, and our understanding of intelligence and sentience of the land and her beings – through poetry, land art and walking art.
When participants walk the land they are faced with these questions:
Where do you end? Where do I begin?
How do you measure life?
When is my time? (reading TEMPO on the large flag)
Where is my wilderness? and What is your medicine?
Jardim Botanico de Lisboa – Council of Seeds
Council of Seeds audio guide CLICK TO LISTEN
You are invited to use the Council of Seeds audio guide when you go for a walk through the Jardim Botanico de Lisboa
Council of Seeds performance and art trail at Jardim Botânico de Lisboa, University of Lisbon, 2022
A contemplative journey through the garden’s paths, a walk through strata of deep time, a passage across human-plant culture.
The stories the seeds can tell. Every seed carries the DNA of the future plant. But not only. As we have evolved together, all ecosystem parts are intrinsically interlinked in a complex dance. Every seed carries the memory of everything else around it, including mountains and waters, animals and other plants. Every seed brings stories connecting it to humans.
I am looking for ways to know the essence of the seed, through poetic storytelling, becoming that essence of the seed, that holds the matrix, the multidimensional memory of its continuous rebirth through time.
The new performance The Council of Seeds brings together seeds found in the Jardim Botanico de Lisboa. Telling their stories in the first person through poetry, I invite them to speak their essence.
Council of Seeds is essentially an open-ended performance and installation, inviting trees and seeds to step forward and speak. All I am here to do is step into their world, listen deeply, reflect, learn their way, and take the medicine they offer.
Although created as a site-specific artwork in the Jardim Botanico de Lisboa, Council of Seeds will grow and expand, to include seeds from other gardens, parks and forests.
Ultimately it is my vision to create an actual Eternal Forest Council which would include the voice of the land, trees, waters, animals and people, as participants in the complex ecosystem, which values every voice.