E S C O L A S

The Research

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O Tempo das Àrvores / The Time of Trees is an artistic-biological dialogue arising from the encounter between human beings and trees. An encounter between living entities.

“Plant blindness” is a cognitive bias defined by J.H. Wandersee and E.E. Schussler in 1999, describing the inability to notice vegetation within a given environment and to recognize its vital importance to the biosphere. According to biologist S. Mancuso, this is linked to the inner workings of our brain: we fail to comprehend that which is fundamentally different from ourselves. From childhood, we begin to identify and learn the names of animals, yet we neglect plants, which dissolve into an undefined green blur. According to quantum mechanics, reality is relational: it is not that objects exist in relation to one another, but rather that relations themselves give rise to the notion of the "object": “we, like waves and all objects, are a flow of events; we are processes that, for a brief moment, remain monotonous” (C. Rovelli).

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The questions that initiate this process of research and creation are: “who am I when I relate to a tree?” and “who are we when we relate to a forest?”. Engaging with a tree compels us to rethink our conceptions of time, scale, movement, sexuality, and individuality, prompting a reflection on a myriad of deep-seated assumptions.

O Tempo das Àrvores will be an interdisciplinary research process in which we seek to weave connections between human and plant life, through a dynamic encompassing observation, mimicry, repetition, care, germination, sharing, encounter, and exchange.

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Throughout the process, there will be moments of sharing where we seek to transcend the boundaries of each body, each material, and each discipline, through the creation of unconventional relationships.

We envision this creative process as a growing forest: a series of interconnected actions, in harmony with the human and botanical ecosystems in which they are embedded, nurturing artistic objects across various media (exhibition, performance, podcast). Building upon the research developed, we will create a production in 2027 with the working title: "Perder-se no bosque"/"Losing Oneself in the Woods", a work for choir and performers.