International Garden Festival 2023 in Quebec invites dialogue between cities and nature

A National Historic Site of Canada and a Quebec heritage site, the Reford Gardens or Jardins de Métis is a cultural space and tourist destination that has grown in impact and scale over the past 60 years. An iconic landscape located at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Mitis rivers, it offers visitors soothing and innovative experiences that reconnect them to nature. It was designed and completed by the adventurous horticulturist Elsie Reford in 1958 and is listed as one of North America's most famed gardens and one of the world's top 150 great gardens. It also plays host to the 24th edition of the International Garden Festival, titled RACINES | ROOTS, which is now open to the public. The current edition of the Festival comprises 22 in situ contemporary gardens, placed inside Reford Gardens, including 5 brand-new large-scale installations, such as the stand-alone works Mer du Vent and Absolues Jardin.

The International Garden Festival is one of the leading contemporary garden festivals in North America. The Festival is held on a site adjacent to the historic gardens created by Elsie Reford, thereby establishing a bridge between history and modernity, and setting up a dialogue between conservation, tradition, and innovation. Since its inception in 2000, the Festival exhibits conceptual gardens each year, created by more than seventy architects, landscape architects, and designers from various disciplines in a pristine environment on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.

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 visual identity for the 24th edition of the International Garden Festival was designed by the talented team at Principal, named Design Studio of the Year by the Advertising & Design Club of Canada (ADCC).

ROOTS, as a concept aims to reject the unrooted vision implanted by the industrial revolution and instead asks the creators of these ecosystems to embrace an approach that seeks nourishment 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. The garden exhibits, a few of which are listed below seek to transcend generations and disciplines.

Le Jardin des quatre colonnes

Vincent Dumay, Baptiste Wullschleger | Sweden + France

Vincent Dumay (architect) operates in Sweden and in France. He experiments with the expressive potential of building with mud-brick. Joined by Baptiste Wullschleger (landscape architect) also a keen naturalist and wildlife photographer, the two have created Le Jardin des quatre colonnes, an experience that unfolds through time. The fluted boles are built using a tubular casing and raw earth, making visible what normally lies hidden beneath our feet. The specifically shaped columns evocative of the Doric style are placed within a living environment that will evolve freely over the years. Their hope is that the public will discover solutions for a more desirable and virtuous future.

Matière-Matière

Studio Haricot (Marie-Pier Caron-Desrochers, Tristan Morissette), Rose-Marie Guévin, Vincent Ouellet

Three walls bend, converge, and project themselves, dilating and contracting, volumes emerge like fruits from the site, as extensions of the vegetation. Matière-Matière is the intrinsic experience of a tone-on-tone relation (texture upon texture, colour upon colour). The project is an invitation to feel one’s way through a tactile 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.

Matière-Matière is conceived by Studio Haricot composed of Marie-Pier Caron-Desrochers and Tristan Morissette, along with their close friends Rose-Marie Guévin and Vincent Ouellet. 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, with the help of eelgrass, a marine plant, women built 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.

Envisioned by Gabriel Demeule, Master of Architecture graduate, and Cassandra Ducharme-Martin who was notably involved in the production of the first demographic study of rare ferns (Botrychium) at Bic National Park, the project strives to honour the Canadian territory.

Maillage

Friche Atelier (Frédérique Allard, Jean-Jacques Yervant, Aliénor de Montalivet) | Quebec, Canada

Maillage, is a metaphorical exploration of the intersection of two worlds - the textile, and the vegetal. The project is designed by Friche Atelier, a landscape architecture and horticulture firm with a focus on developing unique and functional projects which also address sustainability. Headed by Frédérique Allard, Jean-Jacques Yervant and Aliénor de Montalivet, their name signifies the fertility of fallow land or “friche”, and “atelier” or their studio, a workspace conducive to exploration and reflection. They aim to function as a workplace where every project is carefully cared for, from germination to maturity.

The use of plants, at the heart of the development of our civilizations, has provided nourishment, protection, healing, and clothing for generations, allowing populations to survive and prosper. The focus here is on the dyeing properties of plants, known since Antiquity, and their use as a colouring agent for plant and animal fibres.

S’Y RETROUVER

Jinny Yu, Ki Jun Kim, Frédéric Pitre

S’Y RETROUVER invites visitors to slow down and reflect both on the root system and issues of colonialism. It sheds light on the growth of the white clover plant, which just like settlers in Canada, came from Europe and took roots spreading across the North American continent interacting with the ecology of the native soil.

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 walk around a network composed of earth and white clover representing the pattern of the roots of two trees linked by fungal mycelium.

Visual artist Jinny Yu, architect Ki Jun Kim and researcher-botanist Frédéric Pitre are an international multidisciplinary team whose members also have their individual practices. 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.

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

The overarching intent of this event was to raise awareness of the question of the finite character of our resources. The Festival 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.

The event acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage, le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Emploi-Québec, la Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, Stantec, BC2, Premier Tech, Du Chanvre and Pro-Algue Marine.