Bakish Rao: Plants in Struggle (2024)
Bakish Rao: plants in struggle is a science fiction that speculates on plantations and the future of the planet from the perspective of plants and through experimentation with the plant universe. Thus, with the human perspective de-centred, the film is a collaborative experience between artistic languages and scientific debates, as well as an essay that explores the limits of communication by proposing a multi-species speculation to tell the story of the destruction of the forest and the forms of resistance to the homogenization of ecology and thought.
Video about the urban action “The voice of the forest” (2024), created by Nelson Ricardo Martins, which occupies, on World Environment Day, an important historic neighborhood in Coimbra with powerful sound equipment that reproduces the environment of the Amazon forest through sounds emitted by its fauna. The work is visited by dozens of city residents, especially students and elderly people, who participate in an educational activity organized by visual artist Rosana Ricalde.
In collaboration with the Agency for the promotion of downtown Coimbra (APBC), University of Coimbra, MIMESIS – Theater and Performing Arts Cycle and College of Arts of the University of Coimbra.
With the arrival of eucalyptus trees financed by the paper industry, the landscape is radically transformed. Fires, erosion and soil contamination are causing old-growth forests to disappear. Plants and animals end up fleeing to wherever they can survive. Unfortunately, habitable places for foxes, fallow deer, wild boar, lynx, deer, wolves and many birds are becoming increasingly rare. Eostre, the goddess of spring, seeing that humanity is bringing about its own demise and delaying the arrival of spring, transforms an injured bird into a hare, her favorite animal. The hare receives a mission: to reestablish the forest balance, so that animals can return to life. When Spring returns, the hare will be able to turn back into a bird and sing again.
This film is the result of a meeting that occurred in April 2023 in the community of Kalipety, Tenondé Porã Indigenous Land, in the city of São Paulo (Brazil). Jera Guarani and Manuela Carneiro da Cunha talk about the process of regenerating the territory, the importance of native corn and agriculture for the Guarani. The meeting was organized locally by Jera Guarani, Lucas Keese and Hugo Salustiano. It was coordinated by Karen Shiratori and Emanuele Fabiano. We would like to thank Helena Silvestre and Ana Paula Gonçalves for their support and participation.
This film introduces the ECO project and its main goals.