Eternal Forest film screening

This event is an invitation to rethink and reconsider our fundamental relationship with nature.

Descending from the anthropocentric mountain I see beauty, harmony and life itself in crisis. We can no longer live life as usual.

Humans have been affecting the Earth's ecosystems for many thousands of years but it is the last 100 years of our activity that has created dramatically rapid ecosystem destruction. The recent report on biodiversity by the United Nations predicts a million species extinct unless we undertake a cardinal ‘transformative change’.  "Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history – and the rate of species extinction is accelerating."

How can we transform the dominant ‘extractive’ relationship with nature and why this is an urgent and necessary step? How can we reconnect with our forests and nature? Biodiversity has wide value for humans and nature which is not possible to measure with money, how can we create a culture which values it nevertheless?

Eternal Forest asks the question: How can art contribute to creating biodiverse natural spaces which require decades or centuries, to mature and thrive? What are various perspectives on this - and how we can work together to achieve this?

The event includes a screening of recently produced art documentary film Eternal Forest by Evgenia Emets, reading of Eternal Forest Manifesto, Q&A and a conversation among audience.

Eternal Forest

Eternal Forest is an ongoing art project, exploring the human relationship with forests, biodiversity and the sacred. Looking at a timeline beyond human life - a hundred, a thousand, 10,000 years, how can art be created at this timescale? The dream is to invite the audience into the co-creation and appreciation of Eternal Forest Sanctuaries of biodiversity as artworks and temples.

The project started in a small village in Portugal in 2018, where Evgenia worked with local community, recording memories, stories and dreams people have about their forests. The project resulted in creating a series of artworks, an artist book and a film, http://www.evgeniaemets.vision/2017/12/eternal-forest.html. The project has been exhibited across Portugal and in the UK (with over 50 screenings in 2018 and 2019 including Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, King’s College). Evgenia has been invited for a new site-specific commission at the Bienal de Coruche in Portugal in 2019, which resulted in emerging a vision to create 1000 Eternal Forrest sanctuaries across Europe for art, humans and biodiversity, ensuring their preservation for 1000 years.                                

Speaker Bio

Evgenia Emets is a poet and artist, she has lived and worked in Russia, UK and Portugal, her art informed by the language, culture, social and ecological landscape of these places. A graduate of Central Saint Martin’s College of Art, she works with language, word and text, attempting to question and expand their boundaries through artist books, calligraphic works, objects, performances and installations. Today she lives in Portugal, learning a new language, negotiating the cultural, historical, and environmental legacies of her new home country. Eternal Forest is an ongoing art project, which started in 2018, when Evgenia moved from London to Portugal, marks a transition towards integration of ecological thinking into her art.

www.evgeniamets.vision

Event chair
Dr. Naji Makarem (DPU)