Check out the six new landscape art installations now on show at the International Garden Festival

The 25th edition of the International Garden Festival at Reford Gardens in Grand-Métis, Quebec, is now open to the public. 27 contemporary gardens, including six new ones, are on show, along with a permanent installation (Pergola) and two extramural projects (FolkFLORE and Repairia / Riparia). 

For this edition of the festival, running until October 6th, designers responded to the theme "The Ecology of Possibility," which aimed to cultivate explorations into the future of garden design. 

Bruissement d’ailes
By International Garden Festival, Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire (France)

Project excerpt: "Bruissement d’ailes 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 each and 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, by battling heat islands, and by using new or traditional ways to address the problem of water and shade scarcity. Bruissement d’ailes encourages visitors to rekindle their relationship with nature and to pause for a moment in the shade of three elaborate sails, like outstretched wings over a waterlily pond."

Couleur Nature
By Vanderveken, Architecture + Paysage (Canada)

Project excerpt: "Couleur Nature is a curious study into the roles gardens play in our society, comparing the great swaths of utilitarian lawn and our individual leisure devices (with poor social and ecological indicators) with contemplative gardens (with high reflexive and ecological indicators). The installation does not attempt to compare nature with culture, nor the natural with the artificial, but rather strives to juxtapose the two visions of the garden. It demonstrates the absurdity of a dominant mono-culture which, in general terms, has no use apart from simply enabling humans to experience satisfaction watering and mowing their lawn and filling their swimming pools on a perpetual cycle that contributes to the gradual decline of our biodiversity."

FUTURE DRIFTS
By Julia Lines Wilson (United States)

Project excerpt: "In the first year of the International Garden Festival, priority plant species were identified for habitat protection in the St. Lawrence Vision 2000 Action Plan. One of the species was the Anticosti Aster, a cross between New York and Rush Asters. 25 years later, despite habitat protection, the Anticosti and Rush Asters remain endangered species. This garden is posed as a question on the past and future. If New York and Rush Asters crossed again, what would that look like? What possible futures can be sown by these species’ interactions?"

Histoires à tisser
By Shaza Bazzi and Maëlle Bellemin (Canada)

Project excerpt: "Made in part of rope recuperated from the Augmented Grounds garden, Histoires à tisser invites visitors to sit under its canopy and become rooted in the present moment. With two circular modules, it draws on what links us to each other, regardless of our backgrounds and origins. It becomes a safe harbour, where the threads of the past meet those of the present to weave new narratives. Visitors are invited to sit between two net meshes and let themselves get lost in the web of stories."

Rue Liereman | Organ Man Street
By Pioniersplanters (Belgium)

Project excerpt: "In such a densely populated and urbanized area such as Flanders, the fraction of land occupied by domestic or private gardens (of which there are approximately 2 million) is estimated to be 12%. That’s four times the total surface area of natural areas in the region. As such, as long as they are designed and maintained naturally, domestic gardens have the potential to help reduce the effects of climate change and halt the impoverishment of biodiversity, encouraging people to reconnect with nature."

Superstrata
By mat-on (Italy)

Project excerpt: "This year’s theme is explored through the lens of the rhizomatic system, emphasizing the intrinsic value and interconnectedness of life forms and ecosystems. Using a geological map as a metaphor, the garden proposal illustrates the tension between nature’s freedom and humanity’s inclination to impose order. Learning from nature, the installation highlights the co-creation of landscapes by human and non-human entities, showcasing the dynamic, interconnected nature of their interactions."