Eternal Forest takes roots🌿

Voices of the forests

Jul 05, 2025

Our hearts are full as we share this with you: this autumn, something beautiful will begin. In Faia Brava — Portugal’s oldest private protected area — we will plant the Seed of the future Eternal Forest Sanctuary. It’s the beginning of a 1,000-year vision, rooted in art, ecology, and community care. With your support, we will grow a living legacy that future generations can walk through, learn from, and be nourished by.

Our crowdfunding campaign goes live in just a few days — and we need your help to bring this vision to life. Follow, share, and get ready to support something that will last for generations.

On November 7–8, 2025, we invite you to stand with us on the land: to gather, to plant, to celebrate. We’ll take the first steps in creating a forest that is not only biodiverse and regenerative, but also a living work of art. It’s a forest that remembers — and it begins with us.

We would love for you to be there — to plant the first trees, to share stories, and to mark this moment with us and the community. Whether in person or through your support, your presence means everything. This is just the first chapter of something timeless. Let’s plant it together. 🌳

Watch Antonio Araujo and Evgenia Emets’ conversation at ECCOS Channel in Portuguese

The Celebration of Eternal Forest Grove in Picote

On the 14 of June, we celebrated Eternal Forest Grove in Picote, with the local community and guests at Encontros da Primavera, by inviting people who chose to adopt a tree and become one of the guardians of the forest sanctuary. Eternal Forest Manifesto translated into Mirandes – the language of the land of Picote – was read during the celebration.

During the art residency in April 2025, for Encontros da Primavera on the invitation of artist Patricia Geraldes and Frauga, in Picote village, Miranda do Douro in Portugal, inside Douro International Natural Park, Evgenia Emets created an Eternal Forest Grove and a series of interventions in collaboration and with the participation of the local community of Picote.

Eternal Forest Grove is a living forest artwork and a community-stewarded forest. The forest is created in three phases in 2025: art and research residency in April, a symbolic celebration with the community in June during Encontros da Primavera and then, in October the planting of trees and supportive aromatic plants and bushes.

The 8-pointed star is an ancient symbol in the Mediterranean and beyond and was chosen for its association and significance with the fertility of the land, rebirth and protection amongst many meanings across cultures. When one draws the star and connects the lines, one will have intersections, and in these intersections, 25 trees will be planted.

How are the species of trees and plants chosen to be incorporated into this artwork? The starting point is looking at the habitats or their traces in the land – species that are still present, species that have disappeared completely and references from ecological studies. 25 trees from local habitats are chosen and finalised using a combination of science and intuition.

Firstly, through an ancestral traditional divination method with a pendulum, consulting each tree and each planting spot and matching trees to the place. And secondly, consulting with a scientist, for this project, João Carvalho, a scientist at UTAD University, offered support in mapping the 25 species of trees – first, verifying the list of species and then adapting better the location and orientation of trees to North, South, East and West and the river.

VISIT Eternal Forest Grove in Picote

Forest Oracle - Gifts from the Sentient Forest exhibition

For the exhibition Gifts from the Sentient Forest, continuing until the 1st of August, at Villa Vinkkeli in Rovaniemi, Finland, Evgenia Emets created Forest Oracle - a multidisciplinary artwork expressing the forest being, an ‘oracle’ that addresses humankind through its active presence and voice. The poem written in the voice of the forest becomes part film, part a calligraphic scroll expanding poetry into visual form.

The idea of forests having a voice that may find expression through our creative endeavours is not new and has transpired in human cultures living with their forests for millennia in mythical, and symbolic but also practical ways.

In the light of ongoing ecological destruction, loss of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems, it is essential to bring this voice to the forefront, into the centre of our communities, decision-making, and boardrooms, and to find ways we can listen deeply once again and live in harmony with our forests.

The Forest Oracle project emerges in response to the practice of deep listening and observation of the evolving forest ecosystem in Northern Finland, around Stenan Majat Ky (near Äkäslompolo Village) and imagining how it may transform into an old-growth forest if given a chance. During the initial research, observations of the forest around the location of the retreats were made and as well as visiting old-growth forest in the area. Sounds and video recordings of natural elements were collected, which relate to the indicators of a healthy ecosystem, resilience, richness and complexity of the forest.

This project is part of 2-year cohort Gifts from the Sentient Forest led by John Ryan and Francis Joy, exploring forest intelligence and sentience in North Finland through 4 retreats in the forests with a multidisciplinary group of people, an exhibition and a publication.