24 May 2024
The Reford Gardens International Garden Festival will present its 25th edition from June 22 to October 6, 2024, on the theme of The Ecology of Possibility. For this milestone year, the Festival has several surprises in store for visitors on the opening weekend on June 22 and 23.
Discussion Days - Unfolding Possibilities
The 25th edition will kick off with an entertaining and thought-provoking Discussion Day. The first conference-type event organized by the Festival since 2001, Discussion Days will take place over the Fête Nationale / Saint-Jean-Baptiste holiday weekend in Grand-Métis. This interdisciplinary event will bring together professionals, experts, students, the 2024 designers, and members of the general public. More than just a series of lectures, Discussion Days are ultimately about creating a safe space to share ideas and challenge preconceptions about the built environment, the cultural landscape, and biodiversity. The keynote will be given by Chantal Colleu-Dumond, Executive and Artistic Director of the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire and its Festival International des Jardins. Consult the Discussion Days program here.
Special Onsite Project
Pergola
Jérôme Lapierre Architecte
The International Garden Festival asked Jérôme Lapierre Architecte to design a small pavilion to mark its main entrance. Pergola, which will be inaugurated on June 22, offers a contemporary reimagining of the small garden structure traditionally used to provide shade and support for climbing plants. Made of thin walls of interwoven red oak slats, Pergola seeks to celebrate and showcase the play of light and shadow in the surrounding gardens, creating a filter that reveals the true beauty of the site.
Special Onsite Project
Bruissement d’ailes
Festival International des Jardins of the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire (Bernard Chapuis and Georges Vafias)
The culmination of a bilateral agreement between France and Québec, the Bruissement d’ailes Garden highlights the need to get back to basics, to be as close as possible to our natural environment. Climate change and the destruction of natural habitats—these are the new conditions that the world’s temperate zones are now facing. Fragility, imbalance, and uncertainty are now the order of the day, requiring every one of us to adapt to a changing climate by doing everything possible to temper the harmful effects of rising temperatures, by rethinking our behaviour, battling heat islands, and using new or traditional ways to address the problem of water and shade scarcity.
New Gardens—International Call for Proposals
This year, Artistic Director Ève De Garie-Lamanque invited designers to imagine the future of the garden. Four projects were selected amongst the 216 submitted (from 30 countries): Couleur Nature (Vanderveken, Architecture + Paysage | Saint-Lambert, Québec, Canada); FUTURE DRIFTS (Julia Lines Wilson | United States); Rue Liereman / Organ Man Street (Pioniersplanters | Belgium); and Superstrata (mat-on | Italy).
Extramural Project
FolkFlore
33rd Festival International des Jardins of the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire (France)
Inaugurated on May 3, this carte verte, presented by the International Garden Festival at its counterpart festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire on the occasion of our 25th anniversary, was designed by LNpaysage (Luu-Thuy Nguyen, landscape architect) and Champ Libre, studio créatif (Émilie Tanguay-Pelchat, landscape architect and scenographer), in collaboration with Ève De Garie-Lamanque (curator) and Yvette Michelin (sash weaver). FolkFlore, which evokes both the boreal forest and the art of finger weaving, will be on exhibit until November 3.
Visual Identity | The Ecology of Possibility
The visual identity for the 25th edition of the International Garden Festival was designed by a talented team of Montreal graphic designers Principal. For as long as they have been working with the Festival, their work (posters, typography, and campaigns) has garnered international acclaim, including a TDC Certificate of Typographic Excellence (project: ADAPTATION, 23rd edition of the Festival) and a 2022 Scarlet Letter Award for Design Studio of the Year (Advertising & Design Club of Canada).
Our Partners
The International Garden Festival acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage, the Conseil des Arts et des lettres du Québec, the RBC Foundation, Fondation Ariane Riou et Réal Plourde, National Trust Canada, Canada Summer Jobs, Emploi-Québec, and the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec.
The main partner of our anniversary program, Premier Tech sponsors the Discussion Days, as well as the FolkFlore and Bruissement d’ailes gardens. The Québec-France bilateral exchange project received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie, the Délégation générale du Québec à Paris, and the Consulat général de France à Québec. The Festival also acknowledges the support of the MRC de La Mitis, La Maison Alcan, and Mallette.
