Fossilidades, REVELAR, Forest Design, fragment, Evgenia Emets and Te.Ra Landscape Architecture, 2026

Guardians of Future Forests: Evgenia Emet’s Holistic and Metaphysical “Eternal Forest” Project

Interview by Olivia Ann Carye Hallstein

Evgenia Emets works collaboratively with both communities and the land in her “Eternal Forests” project. Pairing ecological dialogues and community co-creation with cultural and biological research, she creates living forests that she hopes will protect and build future forests. 

Evgenia, your current Fossilades project has been planned in Torres Verdras as part of the project REVELAR at CAC Centro de Arte e Criatividade, curated by Jorge Reis and opening in March in an exhibition titled A Memória Dos Pássaros Que Não Voam. What are you most excited about for the exhibition?

Fossilades combines fóssil and possibilidade (fossil and possibility in Eng). When I was invited to create work for the REVELAR project, the point of departure I chose was an ancient Araucaria’s fossilized trunk found in the territory. Witnessing millions of years, I heard it ask whether this memory of deep time can become a catalyst for ecological imagination.

The resulting project unfolds in two directions:

One is a film installation created in collaboration with Marco Piano, presented at the exhibition. Five women exist in the forest in cyclical time. Their gestures are ritualistic, dissolving the boundary between body and woodland. It is a communion, a reenactment of becoming one with the forest.

The second dimension is architectural and ecological. I mapped the quality of reflectivity in an ellipse in the former bullring’s oval arena. Using its two foci (ellipse focal points), I positioned symbolic nodes as offering places for fire and water elements, then traced intersecting lines to generate planting coordinates. 

My intention in restoration work is to maximize habitat potential - layering canopy, understory, and ground cover. I began with biodiversity research and received 75 trees from the local Municipality - all suited to the local climate and ecology which I paired with shrubs and medicinal plants that historically existed in the territory but were reduced through intensive agriculture. 

The work will be complete if the land reveals myths and creates a new story shared and enacted collaboratively by the community and that people choose to become guardians of the proposed community forest.

Eternal Forest Grove, Picote, Marco Piano, Eternal Forest, 2025

In the restoration element of the work, you have mentioned deforestation and forest fires as inspiration for your “Eternal Forest” project. How has this project developed from focusing on destruction to seeking solutions and planting trees?

“Eternal Forest” is about rebuilding emotional and spiritual connections between people and forests, while also creating physical spaces for biodiversity habitats. It is not only about planting trees, but about planting a seed of care in each community so they can exist for generations.

In 2017, I experienced deep ecological grief in the aftermath of destructive fires in Portugal. The questions I had were: What collective wound was I feeling in our relationship with the forest? How did people create landscapes that are mostly productive, often highly extractive? And where are the spaces for natural forests to thrive?

I did not want to focus only on devastation. I wanted to understand how, through art and connecting with communities, we can create and protect forests.

Sacred forests and groves exist in almost all cultures. Some survived, some were hidden, and many suffered with the spread of Christianity and later with colonization and industrialization. Yet many (such as sacred groves and forests in India, Ethiopian, and Eastern Europe) remain in people’s consciousness and therefore can be traced through cultural research. 

Eternal Forest Grove, Picote, Marco Piano, Eternal Forest, 2025

Reflecting your international perspective, the “Eternal Forest” project mission statement – i.e. creating 1000 sacred sanctuary forests for 1000 years and beyond human life – seems to parallel the Indigenous concept of “Seven Generations” (J. Vukelich Kaagegaabaw 2024) held by Anishinaabe / Ojibwe tribes. How have you interpreted “native” and “non-native” aspects of trees/plants when working with different lands and cultures? 

I understand that my role is not to impose, but to adapt the vision of Eternal Forest to a specific place, culture, knowledge, and living ecosystem by creating from a space of deep listening through ecological dialogue. In collaboration with local ecologists and botanists, I work to understand what strengthens biodiversity and resilience to support the ecosystem long-term. 

The idea of creating one thousand sanctuary forests for one thousand years is rooted in a long-term perspective. This does resonate with the Seven Generation principle, which incorporates thinking about the generations ahead and how the decisions we take today will affect them. 

I try to approach working with native and non-native plant species with care and humility. Native species are fundamental because they support insects, birds, fungi, and entire systems of interdependence locally in these places. At the same time, I recognize that landscapes are dynamic and plants mobilized when aided by human migration and a changing climate. 

Fossilidades, REVELAR, Performance, CAC, Marco Piano, 2026

You really take a long-term perspective, which makes me wonder: what do you hope the project will accomplish for future generations who will experience it? In other words - What elements constitute a successful “Eternal Forest”?

I would consider an “Eternal Forest” successful when being “forest guardians” becomes part of people’s psyche. This is why we are actively working on connecting to landowners and stewards who are interested in creating forest sanctuaries with us and being part of the network.

In five years, I envision several Eternal Forest Sanctuaries rooted in distinct regions. 

In ten years, I hope we have established an ecological and cultural network that shares research, artistic exchange, and stewardship practices.

In twenty or thirty years, success would be measured by continuity and whether the forest is embedded within the local community. For me, this would mean having an effective cultural and artistic program, and people who come to visit, learn and spread knowledge. 

Fossilidades, REVELAR, Performance, CAC, Marco Piano, 2026

As a localized and site-specific project with a collaborative mission, how does your approach to a new community differ from or is similar to your approach to nature?

Regeneration cannot be rushed, and neither can trust. So we move slowly to understand, build trust, and create a feeling of ownership for the project. Through patience, listening, and transparency the project gains depth. Communities feel like co-authors rather than spectators through conversations, shared walks, gatherings, and artistic co-creation. In my experience, I have found that a speedy top-down approach does not work. 

My approach to land is similar to my approach to community because I consider humanity an extension of a more-than-human world. When approaching ecosystems, listening, for me, means approaching the land and its beings in an active, compassionate way as co-creators and co-inhabitants by studying species composition, hydrology, soil structure, exposure, and existing ecological pressures. 

To me, our experiences and point of view act as different ways to explore reality that bring these manifestations into the world from the idea space. Place and time, and awareness are important in understanding this context. When everything is in sync, the work feels inevitable rather than constructed. 

The land shapes the concept. The concept refines the intervention. What we call the material world: soil composition, water presence, sun and wind exposure - correct and ground the vision.