his series of poetry emerged from deeply listening to seven plants who came to the stage at Estufa Fria, Lisbon, to participate in an artistic journey, speak to the people and express their messages through poetry. The Religar cycle is part of a larger project, Forest Time, which took place across two spaces, Estufa Fria de Lisboa – a botanical garden of tropical plants, and Monsanto Forest Park – a forest in Lisbon planted about ninety years ago, a biodiversity hotspot and a green lung of Lisbon. Religar explores seven plants and their ecological, historical, cultural and spiritual meaning – both in their place of origin and their extensive sphere of influence beyond. The plants’ stories and messages are retold by the artist through poetry, a series of calligraphy works on paper and a set of immersive art experiences.
I approached this project by stepping into the space of Estufa Fria to go beyond the veil of colonial botany and mere technical descriptions, inviting the plants to join a council, a circle, to speak and reveal their true names and their true purpose of being here, as well as their message to humanity. I asked them the following questions, after which certain answers and guidance were given to me directly by the plants and put in the form of poetry. All the poems are written in the voice of the plant as if they were speaking to the human directly.
What is your name?
What is your journey?
What is your story?
What is your gift?
What is your essence?
What is your message?
Empty yourself
(Fatsia japonica)
What if I told you
You come to me
To empty yourself
Everything
That weighs you down
Throw it in the water!
Before you move
Further
Unaware
Step on my being
Judge
Classify
Speak as if you know
Without tasting bitterness
Or sweetness
Blow it in the air!
Stay with me
A minute
An hour
A day
A moon
A turn
Come back
As if you never
Spoke to me
Everything else
That pulls you
Out of this moment
Toss it in the fire!
Your clock
Your dates
Your calendars
Your deadlines
Your commitments
Your rush hours
Your being late
Your lack of time
Your horror
For the world
Disguised as unrest
Your fear
Of the unknown
Tagged as death
Your shame of what’s
Been done
Reading regret
Your hate to
Need to box
Unmeasurable
Compost it!
Now I am grateful
Now I can teach you
What is your story?
What is your gift?
What is your essence?
What is your message?
Throw them in the water!
Haipu’u Pulu
(Cibotium glaucum)
My shadow that
Softens
Your wounds
Grows as my day
Slows
To patiently meet my ground
To meet the ones unseen
Pulu Pulu Pulu
My shadow that
Governs your strength
Simmers in our mother’s belly
To nourish your hungry breath
Before it withers away
Doubting its own worth
Pulu Pulu Pulu
My shadow that
Guards your quest
Clears away
The tired time from your body
While you fall asleep
In the old crater’s nest
Pulu Pulu Pulu
My shadow that
Calls your voice
Only your bones remember
Why did you wake up again?
To dream an impossible earth
In spite of the bleak prophecy
Pulu Pulu Pulu
My shadow
That speaks your law
The way you own your future
I own my home
Our soil always returns to us
What has been received by her
Chiric Sanango
(Brunfelsia latifolia)
Chiric Sanango, Brunfelsia latifolia, Watercolour on paper, 2023, 162x114 cm
Slow down Slow down Slow down
Listen
All you have now
Is your heart
Every human moment of time
I hear it in the echo
Of my breath
Listen
I belong
To this very piece of dirt
With all my family
You do not know their names
But they know your pain
Listen
The nauseating fever
Of the world
Draws its claws
Into your chest
This sickness is not yours
If you melt it down
I will weave it into a song
Listen
Tour your heart
With me to the wild place within
Where your power
Has petrified into a rock
This is your finest medicine
Crush it
Grind it fine
Take it in
Listen
Taro
(Colocasia esculenta)
The greatest lifeforce of all
Grows from the centre of the earth
The womb of gravity
The bowl of kalo
An everlasting time
Once offered
Forever intertwined
Of all the stories
One has not been told
Our common root
Hold to that thread
Never let it go
It is your light
Through dangers of the path
Before the deepest darkness
Could be ever savoured
Before a blinded seed
Could be ever woken up
Before my way of being
Could be ever named
Before my presence
Could be ever witnessed in your dream
Before my body
Could be ever pounded into a meal
Before my gift
Could be ever doubted by your mind
Before my freedom
Could be ever claimed by greed
Before our thread
Could be ever split in two
Before the loom
Could be imagined – weft and weave
Before the outcomes of your verdicts
Could be ever shaken off
Before unspeakable
Could be agreed by you
Before the time has ripened
For us to hear each other
The greatest lifeforce of all
Grows from the centre of the earth
The womb of gravity
The bowl of kalo
An everlasting time
Once offered
Forever intertwined
Of all the stories
One has not been told
Our common root
Papyrus boat
(Ciperus papyrus)
Papyrus boat, Cyperus papyrus, Watercolour on paper, 2023, 114x169 cm
The words I weave
Around you
Line by line
Come to protect
Your name
Vowel by vowel
Into a fine spell
Our floating world
Swells and tides
Revere
Our journeys
Unsettled, free
Across the Great Green
Into the infinite
The clarity
I’ve soaked
Into my thirsty body
Shaped with your hands
What has been meant for you
Will be uttered
Distilled to sound
The void you
Reach in silence
Unroll your scroll
With light
Unriddle your life
Unravel your way
Healer of all kin
The muddiest water
Diluted with ills
Unwanted, wasted
Run through me
Into the clearest stream
Ripple by ripple
Renewed eternally
The times
I sailed with you
Land after land
A vessel of visions
Made for you to return
Home
Your choice still remains
Peregrination
(Coffea arabica)
“What you seek
Is seeking you”1
One road that comes from afar
Never travelled by you
The longing for the present
What do you need to awaken?
What sort of alchemy needs to happen
Between us?
We both are
The points of departure
I am calling your being
Stirring ecosphere
Blending overtones
This path is liquid
Honouring tracks
Etched into the land
Our encounter cannot be hurried
Spiraling towards the centre
From both ends
I am not the goal of your journey
I am its guardian
Aid for your acute mind
There are two ways
Of knowing the world
By measure or by breath
You are your own apprentice
Radical reciprocity
Your sharpest tool
We are mutually responsible
To each other
The colour of magic
Is your choice
I am powered
By all the prayers infused
Into my grounds
I am offering them to you
Religar
(Nicotiana tabacum & Nicotiana rustica)
Religar Nicotiana tabacum & Nicotiana rustica, Watercolour on paper, 2023, 75x110 cm
Everything that you are not
Free yourself from it
To witness who you are
Besides
The body of bones
The nervous clumps
Of blood
Everything that I am not
Is just a moment of history
I fall to rise with you
To show you what
Powers you hold
I reach for you
To teach you
Everything that you heard
Enter your ears
Overshadows your growth
Examine deeply
The paths you cut
Traces left
Unquestioned
Every piece you disowned
Rejected mindlessly
Call back Call back
Assemble yourself
Around your breath
Song comes alive
In your throat
Everything that you took
In ignorance
Without permission
Has turned against your
Violence
Surrender
Do not fight
Everything that you hurt
Troubles your mind
Will be blown away
For when comes the time
Land heals herself
With the medicine
She grows
Evgenia Emets (b. 1979) is an international artist and poet working with forest ecology and community creating visual art, films, artist’s books and large-scale ecological artworks. Eternal Forest (launched 2018), an ongoing multidisciplinary project, marks an integration of ecological thinking into her art. Eternal Forest is creating a network of 1,000 forest sanctuaries to be protected for 1,000 years through art and community. Eternal Forest has been presented in Portugal, Spain, Mexico and the UK: Bienal de Coruche in 2019 and CI.CLO / Bienal Fotografia do Porto, Roots & Seeds, Quo Artis, Barcelona in 2021, Pela Terra, an encounter for earth and community in Idanha-a-Velha, Portugal in 2023 and at Galeria Municipal do Porto, Jardins do Palácio de Cristal in 2024. Recent solo shows: 2022, National Museum of Natural History and Science and Botanical Garden of Lisbon, 2023, Forest Time, Estufa Fria and Monsanto Forest Park in Lisbon, 2024, Rewilding Time, Hall of Biodiversity – Ciência Viva Center, Porto. Evgenia’s visual works and artists’ books are in museums (Stella Art Foundation and MOMA, Russia), libraries (National Poetry Library, London, British Library and Gulbenkian Art Library) and private collections in the UK, Europe, Japan and Russia.
http://www.evgeniaemets.vision/ and https://eternalforest.earth/
Email: info@evgeniaemets.vision
1 Rumi