San Francisco Building, Chapter Room
Studying the aesthetics of the Azorean cloud forest has been my challenge in recent years. During that time I easily realized that there is no aesthetics in nature, it’s just philosophically imminent. The misaligned view of the lush forests turns out to be demanding, complex and sometimes indecipherable, but with grammar. Verbs have been ordered over millions of years in the evolution of life. So it was never my intention to invent the way we see nature. I’ll just leave a collection of sketches made from the light coming from the sky and the fog coming from the sea. Let’s ask those who know best what this veritable hothouse of evolution has to offer, which is calling up all sorts of names: cloud forest, humid forest, fog forest, misty forest, epiphytic forest, shady forest, cloud forest, luxuriant forest, virgin forest, original forest, impenetrable forest, laurel forest, pristine forest, scrubland and even weeds that serve no purpose. I just want to imagine what words the poet Emanuel Félix, one of my favorites, would use when he felt the silences, the smells, the waters and the peace of these sanctuaries of life: Let Our Lord stroll quietly through the ancient trees of the ineffable forest of clouds from the sea. It may be that by invoking God they leave nature alone…
Paulo Henrique Silva,
atheist and conservationist
Archipelago of the Azores,
December 2022 [email protected]
