Thinking of natural spaces as spaces for creation and artistic experience is the main objective of The Defense of Nature. A project developed by BoCA since 2021, it brings together local communities and artists, calling on them to contribute to a forest of works of art.
After putting down roots in Faro, Almada and Lisbon, the participatory project A Defesa da Natureza returned to Vale de Chelas, in partnership with Lisbon City Council, planting a total of 450 oak, strawberry and rosemary trees. We had already been there in 2021, in an inaugural planting, and in 2022, when 122 participants rolled up their sleeves in front of 580 specimens (including cork oaks, holm oaks, almond trees, carob trees and wild pear trees).
As part of the reforestation program for this natural space, mainly native species have been planted, such as oaks, chestnut trees, maple trees, hazelnut trees, wild apple trees, wild cherry trees, birch trees, strawberry trees, laurel trees and holly trees.
Following Joseph Beuys’ idea that anyone can be an artist, the art of generating life takes the form of the ecological gesture of planting a tree. In these plantings, each person is invited to give their tree a title, treating it as an artistic creation.
ON DEFENDING NATURE
A ten-year participatory project through which BoCA combines artistic creation and programming with the planting of trees in natural spaces. Created in 2021, “The Defense of Nature” comprises: on the one hand, planting native plant species in different municipalities across the country to build a “forest of works of art”; on the other, inviting artists from different artistic territories to create performances in natural spaces through the cycle “I Want to See My Mountains”.
Based on the legacy of “7,000 oaks” by Joseph Beuys, a key figure in ecological art, BoCA is designing a sustainable plantation involving the collaboration of artists and the local population. Creating a direct correspondence between generating life (natural) and generating life (artistic), each plantation thus establishes an integrated thought that unifies the natural and the artistic, in a combination of art and environment, biodiversity and sustainability.
