Is peace the ability to overcome conflicts? Yes, I’ll have to think about that for some time. Perhaps you could express it in that way. Perhaps it’s also about withstanding conflicts, being able to live with conflicts. It’s important not to end up thinking about RIGHT and WRONG, or that “only one of us can be right”, but rather to meet at the point where we have the same interests. Is non-violent communication a tool for achieving more peace? I wouldn’t say that it’s a tool. It has tools, but it’s actually much more of an attitude, or a way …

What drives a clown? Where does this energy come from? The driving force to leave everything behind and to say you don’t want to pursue your profession any more generates huge strength. It is the possibility to seek out and experience an absolute feeling of happiness. The path that I followed led me to a place where 20 people come together who write music, do choreography, who look for places that are abstract, who use a eucalyptus forest as a message and a stage. The impetus is different to 20 years ago. But the energy is the same. That you …

How did your interest in the environment begin? I started by being interested in the consumer society which was starting to emerge in Portugal in the mid-1980s. I started to work for Expresso and it had a section called Bolsa do Consumidor (Consumers’ Corner). We were in a closed society, a very restricted market, and, with the pre-accession to the European Union, we joined the market economy train and there was a boom of consumerism that was completely unprecedented and brutal, with no environmental legislation at that time. We ended up creating huge externalities and many negative impacts from the …

  Where did the inspiration for the
Boom Festival come from? From my youth in Goa in India, where I grew up. Goa was an international meeting point for Asia travellers and hippies, a melting pot for young people from many countries. There was a lot of music. Even in the 1970s, there was a big party on the beach at every full moon, with rock bands playing live. In the 1980s, travellers from Australia, Japan, Europe and America brought the latest avant-garde music with them from their own countries. They gave it to the people now known as DJs. They …

Do you look for solutions at Karuna? Yes, yes. That’s why we built it in 1992. It can give us solutions, it can receive solutions. This is not a closed space. It can receive too. What will be happening here this year? We organise silent retreats. If people feel that they haven’t changed internally, Karuna will help to look inside, to be certain about what we are doing, to be correct. Would you like to tell us a story from your childhood? Yes, I would. It’s a story that I guard closely, a story between me and my father. My …

You’ve travelled the world. Why did you choose to live in the Algarve? I arrived in Monchique after spending 15 years travelling with a backpack. Throughout my travels, I only ever bought a single ticket, but that changed when I arrived in the Algarve (laughs). I was with someone who lived in Monchique and I ended up staying. The same year, I started doing sand sculptures in countries like Belgium and Spain, and also in Albufeira. It was 1998 and I thought of staying because I liked, and still like, Portugal. Five years later, I started the FIESA project. Tell …

Can you tell us a story from your childhood? I was born and lived on a farm in Maia, an area close to Porto. We had a manure heap that we used to fertilise the land. We didn’t use a lot of packaging, we drank water from the well. We’re talking about 40 years ago. My grandfather made his own wine and bottled it. The bottles and flagons were recycled and refilled. There wasn’t the same amount of waste that we see nowadays. If you bought some shoes in a box, the box was used to keep something in. The …

Can culture change our habits? I believe in the transformative power of art. Why? Because the arts have the capacity to divert people from the norm, from normality, and, by going through a different experience they might want to repeat it. An artistic project also provides intuition, sensibility, the capacity to escape from this more materialistic way of seeing things. My intention is to offer artistic objects of great quality to people who have other cultures and who approach this artistic culture in order to draw incredible dividends from it for their everyday lives and for their inner selves. That …

ECO123: Is it difficult to live in Monchique or is it easy? Jeremy: It is easier than it used to be. We were the first foreigners to arrive here. The reception of foreigners is much better than it used to be. Economically it is more difficult nowadays. It means that basically today you have to spend more time working as a percentage of your general time than before. I do gardening and computer work. I first studied electronics in Portimão and then I did a professional course in Faro. When I was younger, electronics was my interest. My father was …