International Fascination of Plants Day

As has become customary in the Public Programs of the Galeria Municipal do Porto, International Museum Day has been celebrated as International Fascination of Plants Day, in a close relationship with those who inhabit the Palácio de Cristal Gardens – its fauna and flora – and also those who visit them, in a joint celebration of the different forms of life.

This year’s guide will be the artist Evgenia Emets, who runs the Eternal Forest project, focused on careful research into the connection between communities and the forest and the urgency of reflecting on these relationships, which are often based on extractive logics.

For this event, Evgenia has followed the four seasons of the year in the Gardens, letting herself be intuitively guided by the plants and trees of the place. The proposal is to go on a journey where we will talk about the species of trees that exist, adding a collective experience of writing from what the plants tell us, while establishing relationships and stories behind each one of them.

Evgenia Emets (1979, Poltava, Ukraine, USSR) is an artist and poet who lives and works in Portugal. She studied for a master’s degree in Fine Arts at Saint Martin’s, London and five years ago decided to rebuild a house and rehabilitate an agricultural plot in Torres Vedras, Portugal. Her practice focuses on ecological issues, which she transposes into visual art, sound and calligraphic poetry, installation, performance and site-specific art in natural contexts.
Her Eternal Forest project marks a transition in the integration of ecological thinking into her art, with the mission of sharing more knowledge about biodiversity, connecting people to nature and the forest landscape through participatory art.

She has exhibited individually or collectively in exhibitions such as CI.CLO / Bienal Fotografia do Porto – Sustentar; Roots & Seeds in Spain; Multispecies Salon in Mexico and at the Cerveira Biennial; Encontro Pela Terra and Galeria Diferença; She has taken part in meetings on Art and Ecology, guiding “artistic experience” courses that have taken place at Estufa Fria Parque Florestal de Monsanto in Lisbon, or at Encontro Pela Terra in Idanha-a-Velha.

Photography: Diogo Meira