12 Jul 2023
The 24th edition of the International Garden Festival, titled RACINES | ROOTS, is now open to the public. This year, Ève De Garie-Lamanque, the event’s Artistic Director, invited designers to imagine a present and a future that is ecologically, economically, and culturally responsible by drawing on the teachings of past generations.
The current edition of the Festival comprises 22 in situ contemporary gardens, including 5 brand-new ones, as well as the stand-alone installations Mer du Vent and Absolues Jardin. Twelve designers from Quebec, Ontario, Sweden and Germany were present for the opening of the Festival, which will run until October 1st, 2023.
Theme | ROOTS
With the advent of the digital age, globalization and the rapid speed of technological advancement that is changing our relationship with time, the physical world and each other, ROOTS rejects the unrooted vision implanted by the industrial revolution to embrace an approach that seeks to be nourished from a common heritage.
The theme counters the forces of homogenization that are part of globalization, incorporating the notion of globality coined by the Martinique poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant (1928-2011). It invites a return to what is essential by integrating the use of native plants, local materials – whether reused or with limited environmental impact –, as well as traditional methods of construction combined with a contemporary vision that embraces both regional communities and ecosystems. ROOTS intends to challenge the status quo and create innovative human-scale environments. It seeks to transcend generations and disciplines.
New Gardens
Le Jardin des quatre colonnes
Vincent Dumay, Baptiste Wullschleger | Sweden + France
With a project that is both poetic and a manifesto, we hope that the public will discover solutions for a more desirable and virtuous future. We intend to raise awareness of the question of the finite character of our resources. Le Jardin des quatre colonnes is an experience that unfolds through time, where elements built with raw earth within a living environment will evolve freely over the years.
Adobe construction is a technique that consists of compacting soil mixed with moisture in successive layers inside a casing – it makes visible what normally lies hidden beneath our feet. The fluted boles are built using a tubular casing which gives them their specific shape evoking Doric columns.
A graduate of the École d’architecture Paris-Est, Vincent Dumay (architect) operates in Sweden and France. He experiments with the expressive potential of building with mud-brick. He previously worked as a mud-brick mason at Martin Rauch in Austria, and more recently furthered his research at the Swedish Institute in Rome.
Founder of Les Oiseaux Architectures, a keen naturalist and wildlife photographer, Baptiste Wullschleger (architect and landscaper) leverages his observations to gear his projects towards the happy co-existence with the free and wild non-human. In early 2023, he published “L’ensauvagement : Cohabiter avec le vivant sauvage” with Philippe Benoit.
Maillage
Friche Atelier (Frédérique Allard, Jean-Jacques Yervant, Aliénor de Montalivet) | Quebec, Canada
The use of plants is at the heart of the development of our civilizations. Whether for nourishment, protection, healing or clothing, their multiple applications have allowed populations to survive and prosper.
The dyeing properties of plants are known since Antiquity, and their use as a colouring agent for plant and animal fibres represents a millennium-old know-how, exploiting the different parts of a plant (leaves, roots, flowers, fruits…). Maillage explores on a metaphorical level the relation between two worlds, that of the textile, and that of the vegetal.
Friche Atelier [Frédérique Allard, landscape architect, partner; Jean-Jacques Yervant, HMONP-certified (France) architect, partner; Aliénor de Montalivet, landscape architectural technician, horticulturist] is a landscape architecture and horticulture firm with a focus on developing unique projects that seamlessly marry functionality, sustainability and sensitivity.
While an empty field may evoke images of an area where nothing grows, “Friche” or fallow land is an analogy for a place of renewal, where nature can do its thing. It symbolizes the beginning — the place where ideas germinate, and projects take root. As fertile as fallow land, an “atelier” or studio is a workspace conducive to exploration and reflection. A place where every project is carefully cared for, from germination to maturity.
This idea is at the foundation of Friche Atelier — the idea that a landscape is a place of living and experiencing; a witness of passing time; and a space where both the nature that makes it up and the people who frequent and take care of it evolve.
Matière-Matière
Studio Haricot (Marie-Pier Caron-Desrochers, Tristan Morissette), Rose-Marie Guévin, Vincent Ouellet | Quebec, Canada
Matière-Matière is the intrinsic experience of a tone-on-tone relation (texture upon texture, colour upon colour): volumes emerge like fruits from the site, as extensions of the vegetation. Three walls bend, converge and project themselves, dilating and contracting. The project is an invitation to tactilely feel one’s way through materiality stripped bare, inside moments of uncanny encounters. This structure of hemp concrete, deposited in the context of a patch of wheat and a carpet of mulch, offers a parallel between the possible transformations of vegetal fibres up to the materialization of the proposed spaces.
Rose-Marie Guévin, Tristan Morissette and Marie-Pier Caron-Desrochers’s friendship took root while they were studying architectural technology. Their educational careers took them on separate paths, but they remained close friends. In Montreal, Marie-Pier and Tristan studied environmental design at UQAM, while Rose-Marie headed to Université Laval’s École d’Architecture, where she met Vincent Ouellet in her master’s program.
In 2022, Marie-Pier and Tristan founded Studio Haricot. Marie-Pier is currently engaged in a multidisciplinary practice and Tristan is moving to Quebec City with Vincent and Rose to pursue his career in architecture.
The consortium is above all else a friendship with intertwined and complementary backgrounds.
Racines de mer
Cassandra Ducharme-Martin, Gabriel Demeule | Quebec, Canada
In a climate similar to ours, on the island of Læsø in Denmark, women built, with the help of eelgrass, a marine plant, the roofs of their houses. Due to the waterproof and fireproof properties of these marine plants harvested on beaches, these roofs have resisted the ravages of time for more than three hundred years.
Racines de Mer proposes a reflection on the built environment of the future. It offers the visitor the possibility of discovering Quebec’s territory and traditional skills. On the one hand, the light wooden frame, left uncovered, celebrates the elegance of this method of construction, a system omnipresent in North America. On the other hand, its roof made of seaweed inspired by those of the island of Læsø exploits the riches of the St. Lawrence River and reveals its dormant potential.
Gabriel Demeule holds a Master of Architecture from the Université Laval (2019). He gained a footing in the industry working at Lab-École and Agence Spatiale, before moving on to the Quebec City firm Jérôme Lapierre Architecte. Above all else, Gabriel strives to honour our territory through his creations. He aspires to a silent architecture that charms and fades away.
Cassandra Ducharme-Martin holds a Bachelor of Biology from the Université du Québec à Rimouski (2021). She was notably involved in the production of the first demographic study of rare ferns (Botrychium) at Bic National Park and has also participated in many research projects into the flora of Quebec. A cold-water diver, Cassandra finds intrigue in the serendipity of the St. Lawrence River.
S’Y RETROUVER
Jinny Yu, Ki Jun Kim, Frédéric Pitre | Ontario & Quebec, Canada + Germany
Visitors are invited to enter a submerged maze: a puzzle with various possible routes and dead ends meant to confuse and challenge those who explore. At the same time, the top of the wall of the trenches, which is at ground level, allows for the possibility of deciphering the pathway with an overall view of the route before entering. Upon entering the subterranean world, visitors reach the first level of the substratum of the root system and walk around a network composed of earth and white clover representing the pattern of the roots of two trees linked by fungal mycelium.
The white clover, just like many settlers in Canada, came from Europe and took roots spreading across the North American continent interacting with the ecology of the native soil. S’Y RETROUVER invites visitors to slow down and reflect both on the root system and issues of colonialism.
Visual artist Jinny Yu (Ottawa/Berlin), architect Ki Jun Kim (Berlin) and researcher-botanist Frédéric Pitre (Montréal) are an international multidisciplinary team whose members also have their practices. Jinny and Ki Jun are life partners and Frédéric a good friend. They share decolonial and environmental concerns and collaborate by bringing together their expertise, lived experiences and different perspectives to produce a meaningful project for the general public.
Selection Committee
This year’s selection committee was composed of David Bonnard, Architect HMONP (ENSAL) and founder of HYTT Architecture, Lyon, France; Stéphanie Henry, Landscape Architect AAPQ-CSLA and co-founder of Castor et Pollux – Agence de paysage et design urbain, Montreal; François Côté, Senior Partner at Norton Rose Fulbright Canada and member of the Festival’s Board of Directors; Alexander Reford, Director of the Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens; Ève De Garie-Lamanque, Artistic Director of the International Garden Festival; and François Leblanc, the Festival’s Technical Coordinator.
Visual Identity | ROOTS
The visual identity for the 24th edition of the International Garden Festival was designed by the talented team at Principal. For as long as they have been working with us on Festival content, their work (posters, typography and campaigns) has garnered international acclaim, including most recently a TDC Certificate of Typographic Excellence and an Idéa 2023 – Gold prize (project: ADAPTATION, 23rd edition of the Festival). Last fall, the Principal was named Design Studio of the Year by the Advertising & Design Club of Canada (ADCC).
Stand-alone Installations
Mer du Vent, 2022
Emmanuelle Loslier and Camille Zaroubi, in collaboration with Sébastien Beaulieu
Presented in partnership with the Centre d’art de Kamouraska
Absolues Jardin, 2022 (from mid-July)
Anne Barnard, Marianne Demers, Lou Marchais
Designed as part of a collaboration with UQAM’s DESS en design d’événements
