Public art · Évora, Alentejo
BOSK
A forest moves into Évora's main square.
A thousand trees on the Rossio de São Brás for Évora 2027, European Capital of Culture, then planted for good across the city.
The project
BOSK is a living forest planted in Évora's main public square. Across 2027, the year Évora is European Capital of Culture, around a thousand large trees in movable containers take over the Rossio de São Brás and are rearranged through the year, by machine and by residents, so that the square never looks the same twice. It is a public artwork, a gathering place and an urban ecology laboratory at once, and it is one of the structuring projects of the official Évora 2027 programme.
Why it matters
Culture as climate adaptation.
The Rossio is one of the hottest and most exposed public spaces in a city facing rising temperatures and water scarcity. BOSK's argument is that culture can be an instrument of climate adaptation rather than a commentary on it: shade, cooler air and biodiversity arrive as artistic consequences, and they stay.
Nothing leaves Évora. When the year is over, the larger trees remain as a permanent micro-forest on the square, and the rest are planted across the city and in a new environmental park.
The programme
What happens across the year.
Green Heart
Around a thousand large trees in movable containers, rearranged through the year by machine and by residents.
Green Parades
Five hundred shrubs carried through the historic centre every month by volunteers, schools and local organisations, with music and street theatre.
Birthday Trees
Every Évora resident can collect a free tree on their birthday, later planted with hundreds of others in a new Happiness Forest.
Living Lab
Artists, researchers, students and urbanists working together on climate and public space.
From Leeuwarden to Évora
The project is conceived by Bruno Doedens, a Dutch land artist who has spent two decades making temporary landscapes on dikes, dunes, beaches and polders, often at the scale of hundreds of metres. BOSK was first realised in Leeuwarden in 2022, as part of the legacy of that city's European Capital of Culture year, where a walking forest of more than a thousand trees crossed the city centre over one hundred days and won the Dutch Design Award. Évora's edition adapts that idea to the Alentejo: its light, its heat, its native species and its own relationship with time.
Photos: BOSK Leeuwarden, 2022. The Évora edition opens in 2027. Credits: Arcadia, SLeM.
Framework
Portugal's Donation Golden Visa (legally, the ARI Cultural route)
Project status
Approved by the Ministry of Culture.
Eligibility
All non-EU citizens.
Donor benefits
Project-specific benefits, shared in donor calls.
The partnership
Who is building BOSK.
Promoter
Fundação Alentejo
Public-utility foundation in Évora since 1999.
Capital of Culture
Évora 2027
BOSK is a structuring project of the programme.
Artistic direction
Fundação SLeM
Dutch foundation of land artist Bruno Doedens.
Cultural Co-Producer
Cascais Ventures
The leading cultural creation agency in Portugal.
Highlighted by the Ministry of Culture as a landmark public partnership.
Who we are
Cascais Ventures creates and produces the government-approved cultural projects behind Portugal's Donation Golden Visa: heritage rehabilitation, film and documentary, artistic programmes.