Biography / Statement





Artist Statement

I am an artist and a poet passionate about working with forests, ecology, biodiversity and community through my visual works, poetry, installation, performance and forest art. 

Sound art, poetry, and calligraphic practice merge in my installation and performance work. I intend to capture spontaneous messages of time and timelessness in my poetry, reflected in vocal and visual form. This articulates an ongoing discourse between abstract and concrete languages of visual and sonic spaces.

I often work with voice, always present and accessible to us, negotiating possibilities and limits of languages. Most poems serve as graphic scores for actual performances.

The audience is central to many of my projects. I invite participants into an immersive and often ritualistic space, be it a participatory sound piece, a co-created artist’s book, or a large-scale installation.

I am interested in the subject of time in the context of cultural perceptions, through the prism of history, philosophy, science and nature. My ongoing projects ‘Eternal Forest’ and ‘Time Wave’ are series of investigations and artistic resolutions placing cultural phenomena and spheres of human and non-human activity in the context of time. 

Since making Portugal my home I started ‘Eternal Forest’ project (2018), first as an attempt to understand the human drivers behind deforestation and disappearance of biodiverse natural forests, and then with a vision to create Eternal Forest Sanctuaries through art and community engagement as spaces for deep connection with nature.


Biography

Evgenia Emets is an artist, a poet and a filmmaker working with forests, ecology, biodiversity and community through her visual works, poetry, installation, performance, film, artist’s books and large scale ecological artworks. 

Evgenia was born in Poltava, USSR, in 1979, has lived in Moscow and London and lives in Portugal since 2017. 

Eternal Forest ongoing multidisciplinary project marks a transition towards integration of ecological thinking into her art. Evgenia moved to Portugal in 2017, the year of some of the most destructive forest fires connected with the presence of monocultures in the country. This motivated her to explore through artistic means the roots of these issues and to start the art project Eternal Forest, which is an ongoing multidisciplinary art initiative to create forest sanctuaries across the world - biodiverse areas to be protected in perpetuity, created through art and ecology and, supported by local communities. 

The project has been exhibited across Portugal and in the UK (Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, King’s College), has been invited to participate at the Bienal de Coruche in 2019 and CI.CLO / Bienal Fotografia do Porto - Sustentar programme, invited to participate in a multidisciplinary programme Roots & Seeds (organised by Quo Artis, Ars Electronica, and others) in Barcelona in 2021. 

Her art has been exhibited in such institutions as National Gallery London, NGX, King’s College, Tate Exchange/Tate Modern, Royal College of Art, Barbican, V&A Chelsea College of Art, and many more.

Evgenia’s visual works and artist’s 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 Russia, UK, Europe and Japan. 

Recent awards: 2020 CiClo Sustentar, Portugal; 2019 Arts Council, KIMA: Noise film and installation, Analema Group, Tate Exchange/Tate Modern, UK; 2018 CineEco Seia, Regional Award for Eternal Forest film, Portugal; 2016 Arts Council, KIMA, Analema Group, Roundhouse, UK; 2014 Arts Council, KIMA, Analema Group, Union Chapel, UK