In Convivium #8
With cultural creative Evgenia Emets and the Council of All Beings
(You can watch the video recording of our conversation here.)
Evgenia Emets is a visual artist and poet now working at the intersection of ecology, language, and collective memory. Her practice explores how we relate to land through ritual, storytelling, and co-creation with place. Winding back a little, Evgenia moved to Portugal in 2017, the year of my last visit, arriving in a country increasingly traumatised by wildfires. These fires are exacerbated by extensive - and highly flammable - Eucalyptus plantations, themselves born of a deeply-layered story of human disconnection from, and a resultant utilitarian use of, the land, as she puts it.
Rather than joining calls to simply plant more trees, her response was to ask: “How can we truly re-inhabit that place of connection, of belonging, of stewarding the land in the best possible way so that future generations can find it better than we found it.” Thus began her journey as an ecological artist and the gestation of today’s big project, Eternal Forest, that is dreaming authentic ecological community into being across space and time.
This being is achieved through the creation of physical spaces, long-term forest sanctuaries, co-designed with, and ultimately led by, the full range of local biocultural stakeholders - a veritable Council of All Beings, with “deep listening” paramount. “The more we open the circle the richer we become in this process,” asserts Evgenia. Art is used to heal the rift between humans and wider nature, at the same time empowering people to reverentially care for these sacred spaces in to the future. A mutual journey toward elderhood, old-growth forest and culture.
“If you’ve never visited an old-growth forest, then give yourself the gift of going there as soon as possible,” says Evgenia. “There is a sense of presence, a sense of maturation, of spirit - you are in an ancient cathedral basically.” And as Stephen Harrod Buhner has put it, “there are states of being that only come into play with age.” In the context of forests, complexity increases, new characteristics and organismal associations emerge that were not possible before. Evgenia is not alone in believing that such “forest universities” contain future-ready “technologies” hidden in plain sight. A fitting scenario indeed for the trending reunion of science and spirit.
One detail of her work that drew me in was the use of sacred geometry. As modern humans are rediscovering, such structured patterning is what fundamentally directs energy flow across space and time, and Eternal Forest applies this ancient understanding to fractally seed regenerative energies across a landscape, as Evgenia explains in this interview. It’s a process reflective of her belief that art should be regenerative, seeding brighter futures on the ground, in situ, rather than ex situ in a gallery. “We can’t just endlessly produce objects. We need to rethink how art can be in service of the transformation we are experiencing.” Amen.
Another aspect that naturally appealed to me is Evgenia’s relationship with Eucalyptus. Given this tree’s maligned nature in Portugal she was reluctant to work with them at first, yet ultimately couldn’t resist their repeated attempts to reach out to her. She now sees Aboriginal Eucalyptus as a messenger of disconnection and destruction, one that also offers humans a dreamtime space to act differently. They have helped her realise that “trees never come alone, they come bringing that whole matrix of cultural connections that have been created over centuries.” And, they added, “we’re here to stay.”
“When the land is inviting you into that process of healing what trauma the land has experienced, it is also inviting you into your own process of healing. And these processes are happening side by side, mirror to mirror, completely intertwined. So the moment you pull one thread, you’re pulling also something inside of you. And as you are releasing whatever is holding you back in your evolution, you are also helping the land to release.” That’s a truly hopeful message Evgenia leaves us with.
Again, you can watch the video recording of our conversation here.
For those in a position to receive these gifts, Eternal Forest will be hosting an in-person gathering in Portugal this September, during which participants will be prototyping how to create a forest sanctuary from scratch, and developing an associated toolkit (both grounded in situ within the local municipality). There are also seed events planned for California (USA) later this year. Please visit the Eternal Forest website for further information.