Waking Life is nestled in Portugal’s Alentejo region and is centred around the 10-hectare lake in Crato called ‘Barragem das Nascentes’. This semi-arid Mediterranean landscape feels the heat—literally—with irregular rainfall, rising temperatures, droughts, and wildfires intensifying due to climate change. The eucalyptus monoculture that surrounds the land is the cherry on top, stifling biodiversity.

Waking Life exists as a temporary autonomous zone that takes a lot of human and non-human energy. We don’t mind addressing the elephant in the garden: sustainability and most modern-day festivals don’t usually go hand-in-hand but we hope to compost this idea and fertilise new ones: how can we transition our mindsets from exploitation to conservation? From consumption to creation? How can we decouple growth from extractivism or a greenwash?

The Waking Life Landcare Project is a laboratory and an experimental garden for cultivating new models of interaction between cultural productions, regenerative practitioners, and local communities. In essence, the Landcare Project and festival are intertwined.

We see the complexity of reporting on, and managing our sustainability footprint as a microcosm of Earth’s wider climate crisis. This is an exercise in learning to think outside of silos and to see the Waking Life ecosystem as part of a whole.

Get nerdy with us on our sustainability journey so far.