Pruning the banana tree, harvesting the beans and turmeric, reforesting life in all its smallest aspects. The “good morning” each morning smelled of freshly roasted coffee. Burning chamomile incense with tangerine peel. Leaf tempura and acarajé. Axé. Fermentation of bread, kimchi, invisible beer, momentary affections. The unexpected fall of the ants. The ascent of companion species to the top of the mountains. The sleep of the clouds. There we rest.

The research that led me to the Cidade Floresta Residence arose from personal questions about the time for sleep, rest and the paradoxical lethargy that affects our vital forces in the city: burn out, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, depression, some of the characteristic symptoms of “tired societies” which, according to philosopher Byung Chul-Han, cultivate a hypervaluation of productivity and the notion of progress.

Faced with the exhaustion that affects our powers of being, being and acting in the world, how can we establish a small truce with the system, that is, allow more time for the time of things: for the wound to heal, for the seed to ripen, for devastated soil to recover, for resilience in the face of mourning?