The International Garden Festival is pleased to unveil the names of the new designers and their gardens chosen for the 21st edition of the Festival. Five new projects from South Korea, France, Montreal and Toronto have been selected to be featured at the 2020 edition of the International Garden Festival.

The new gardens will be on exhibit at Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens from Saturday, June 20 to Sunday, October 4, 2020. For its 21st edition, visitors will enjoy more than 25 gardens, each one pushing the frontiers of contemporary design and offering a unique mix of curated environments, natural experiences, horticultural staging and human creativity.

Métissages is the theme for the 21st edition and the new installations offer hybrids of colours and textures drawn from marine life, the environment and cultures from around the world. Continuing the exploration of new ideas and emerging practices, the Festival connects designers from various fields to favour the crossbreeding of disciplines to offer visitors explorations of new territories.

Cross-breeding in the context of contemporary gardens can be of practices (landscape architecture, garden design, architecture, visual arts, industrial design, cuisine and other fields of creative expression), plants (native or exotic) and materials (natural and manufactured). This mixity of approaches enriches and excites, creating new opportunities for exploration.

Five New Gardens to be Experienced This Summer

Five new gardens were chosen by the jury from among the 200 projects submitted following an international call for proposals that attracted proposals from designers from 38 countries:

Augmented Grounds

by Soomeen Hahm, Architect, Jaeheon Jung, Architect and Yumi Lee, Landscape Architect

Seoul (South Korea)

Augmented Grounds is inspired by the traditional sash of the Métis nation of the Western Plains. The garden represents harmony through colourful ropes that are tightly laid on top of sculpted terrain. The garden is made possible by using smart construction technology that uses augmented reality for its layout and installation.

Corps de résonance

by Charlotte Barbeau, Designer, Leila Desrosiers, Designer, Félix Roy, Environmental Designer and Jean-Benoit Trudelle, Architectural Intern

Montreal (Quebec) Canada

Corps de résonance is a musical folly that takes form in a forest glade. Visitors move in and around this giant instrument that comes to life in the playing, vibrating along with the sounds of the forest.

ENTWINE

by Waiyee Chou, Landscape Architect, Toronto (Ontario) Canada and Carlos Portillo, Landscape Architect, Montreal (Quebec) Canada

ENTWINE incorporates the ancient knot-tying technique of Macramé to highlight the varieties of plants hybridized for horticulture. Inside a spiral, visitors are free to wander between suspended vessels and become entwined with the structure’s cords.

Forêt corallienne

by Lucie Bulot, Architect, Paris (France) and Dylan Collins, Designer

Montreal (Quebec) Canada

Forêt corallienne is a coral forest of a different kind. A community of limestone creatures takes root in the forest, a métissage of colour and form that creates an unusual landscape and a new hybrid world.

(Mé)Tissages

by Duke Truong, Architect

Strasbourg (France)

(Mé)Tissages is a woven landscape that invites visitors to enter through layers of elastic elements into a space created by the weaving of various elements. This experimental garden unites visitors through a shared experience of an installation that combines architecture and nature. (Mé)Tissages is also an invitation to question the links between communities. Visitors discover a multiplicity of landscapes that resonate as visitors explore and read between the lines.

***

Two projects received a special mention from the jury:

Entre vents et marées

by Emmanuelle Loslier, Landscape Architect and Camille Zaroubi, Landscape Architect

Montreal (Quebec) Canada

Zoétrope métis

by Sami Tannoury, Architect

Montreal (Quebec) Canada

The jury was composed of: 

- Sophie Beaudoin, Associate Landscape Architect, Claude Cormier + Associés Architecture de paysage et Design urbain

- Lise Gagné, Architect, Chair of the Board of Directors of the International Garden Festival 

- Michael Jemtrud, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, McGill University

- François Leblanc, Technical Coordinator, International Garden Festival

- Kim Pariseau, Architect, Appareil Architecture

- Alexander Reford, Director, International Garden Festival

The proposals submitted to the 2020 competition are exhibited on line at: www.festivalinternationaldejardins.com

About the International Garden Festival

The International Garden Festival is the most important contemporary garden festival in North America. The Festival held its 20th anniversary edition in 2019. Since it began in 2000 to celebrate the new millennium, more than 1 million visitors have explored the Festival gardens and been inspired by the more than 200 projects that have been exhibited.

Presented at Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens at the gateway to the Gaspésie region, the Festival is a laboratory for innovation and a giant outdoor playground for creators. The Festival provides a unique dialogue between the past and the present and an ongoing conservation of innovation, tradition and conservation. Architects, landscape architects, visual artists and designers contribute to expanding the horizons of the garden and to the ongoing reinvention of this unique shoreline environment along the St. Lawrence River. 

The Festival is presented with the support of: Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage, the Conseil des art et des lettres du Québec and Emploi-Québec.

Hydro-Québec has been the lead sponsor of Les Jardins de Métis since 1999.

About Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens

National Historic Site and Quebec heritage property, Les Jardins de Métis is a must-see stop for all those visiting the Gaspésie and Lower St. Lawrence regions of eastern Quebec. Cultural space, emblematic landscape and garden destination for more than fifty years, Les Jardins de Métis is one of Canada’s best-known tourism icons. It offers experiences ranging from quiet forest contemplation to innovative installations and exhibitions by leading Canadian and international artists. Located where the Mitis River meets the St. Lawrence, the gardens continue the tradition of innovation initiated by the gardens’ founder, Elsie Reford, who began experimenting and adventuring in gardening in 1926. Her gardens are today recognized as one of the “great gardens” of North America and one of the top 150 gardens in the world. 

Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens are open every day from Saturday, May 31 to Sunday, October 4, 2020. Walking trails are open to members in the off season. Admission is free for children 13 and under. For more information, go to www.refordgardens.com.