After putting down roots in Faro, Almada and Lisbon, the participatory project The Defense of Nature has arrived in northern Portugal, in partnership with the municipalities of Braga and Penafiel.

Birch trees, oaks, laurels, stone pines, chestnut trees, strawberry trees and cork oaks have enriched the flora of the Shadow Island on the Encosta das Lages, in Penafiel. In an initiative that brought together 30 participants, it was carried out with the new space for culture and creativity - Ponto C - on November 16.

The “Ilhas Sombra” (Shadow Islands) project in Penafiel aims to plant native flora to combat the effects of climate change in cities and promote biodiversity.

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.