Unexpected landscapes

PINK PUNCH by Nicholas Croft, Michaela MacLeod | New York, United States | Photo credit: Louise Tanguay

Innovation and experimentation mark the International Garden Festival, the leading venue for the exhibition of contemporary landscaping and gardens held annually since 2000 in Grand-Métis, Quebec, Canada.

The Festival fosters interaction between the visual arts, architecture, landscape, design and nature and inspires visitors with the unique ephemeral installations that are exhibited every summer.

This unique event proposes in a simple, direct and effective way the importance of landscape architecture in our daily lives. The Festival continues until the end of September and is a must-see for those visiting Québec and the Gaspésie and Lower St. Lawrence regions this summer.

The 15th edition of the International Garden Festival is open to the public and may be visited until September 28, 2014, presenting 22 contemporary gardens at Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens. Imagined by sixty-five designers from Seoul, Santiago de Compostela, NewYork, Philadelphia, Basel, Amsterdam, Paris and Montreal, these installations invite visitors to enter and contemplate new ways of seeing the landscape and the world.

Aligned on a sunny esplanade or huddled in green rooms, the installations evoke the playful, the poetic and the delicacy and complexity of life. Through such installations as Courtesy of Nature, Sacré potager,Orange Secret, Pink Punch, Méristème, Cone Garden,Afterburn and Bal à la Villa, visitors are transported to new universes on an exceptional environment on the edge of St. Lawrence River.

COURTESY OF NATURE by Johan Selbing & Anouk Vogel | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Photo credit: J.-C. & L. Hurni

Instead of creating a new object to be placed in a gallery, an exhibition space is designed around existing elements. The museum is, after all, a place conceived for seeing.

VEIL GARDEN by Studio Bryan Hanes & DIGSAU | Philadelphia, United States | Photo credit: Louise Tanguay

Veil Garden is an enclosure constructed with chain link fencing, providing privacy and protection for both plants and people and an opportunity traverse the garden from above.

DEAD GARDEN II by Carlos M. Teixeira | Belo Horizonte, Brazil | Photo credit: Louise Tanguay

Departing from an inexorable phenomenon - every life is a foretold failure, Dead Garden II is a garden made of fallen trees and employs dead organic matter as something that can trigger another life.

SACRÉ POTAGER by atelier barda architecture | Montréal (Québec) Canada | Photo credit: Louise Tanguay

Votive candles illuminate pure white chapels, adorned with images of forgotten vegetables. An invitation to the visitor to make an offering for their return to our gardens and grocery shelves.

LE BON ARBRE AU BON ENDROIT "Souvenir d'enfance" by NIPpaysage | Montréal (Québec) Canada | Photo credit: Louise Tanguay

Under a canopy of white wires, a play area invites you to discover a new version of the game of elastics. This garden presents the Hydro-Québec program “The right tree in the right place”.

TINY TAXONOMY by Rosetta Sarah Elkin | Montréal (Québec), Canada | Photo credit: Louise Tanguay

This garden highlights the beauty of inconspicuous and often ignored players : the plants of the forest floor, by elevating these species from their common position to a more dynamic perspective at varying eye-levels.

HA HA! by Spmb & Ralf Glor, Matt Baker, Martin Gagnon | Winnipeg (Manitoba) & Montréal (Québec) Canada | Photo credit: Louise Tanguay

As one slowly approaches, an event of colour is gradually revealed. Inside, one finds a mix of intimate areas, making he garden more than a simple object of contemplation.

FAIRE DES RONDS DANS L'EAU by Diana Balmori | New York, United States | Photo credit: Louise Tanguay

A series of circular frames offers a different perspective on the landscape and a tool to focus the mind on what is essential.

RÉFLEXIONS COLORÉES by Hal Ingberg | Montréal (Québec), Canada | Photo credit: J.-C. & L. Hurni

The semi-reflective equilateral triangle provides an intimate, courtyard-like enclosure that both frames and intensifies the perception of the forest.

HISTOIRE SANS FIN or LE BOIS DANS TOUS SES ÉTATS by atelier eem | Paris, France | Photo credit: J.-C. & L. Hurni

The re-creation of a woodlot offers a metaphor of the experience of the evolutionary cycle of the forest in condensed form. In a forest of poplars, carefully stacked cords of wood illustrate the passage of time.  

PINK PUNCH by Nicholas Croft, Michaela MacLeod | New York, United States | Photo credit: Louise Tanguay

Pink Punch attracts visitors off the beaten path by its striking colour using the traditional technique of tree wrapping to envelop the trunks.