18. les fleurs prennent le pouvoir

Emblems of freedom, glimmers of hope, flowers represent the power of resurgence and resilience. They carry within them the surge of life, which withstands everything and cannot be held back despite the blackest of times.
The garden provides a pathway from despair to rebirth, from shadow to light, with the underlying memory of the flowered banners of contemporary conflicts (the poppy and cornflower of the Great War, for instance) and popular resistance movements (the Carnation Revolution, the Jasmine Revolution, and so on).
Entering the garden, we are immersed in an atmosphere of gloom and chaos. Flowers are low, sombre-hued and resistant as we pass them by with growing unease. Only a few openings offer glimmers of hope of a possible “afterwards”.
And then, all of a sudden, we find ourselves in an open space filled with blinding light: we are in the midst of a profusion of flowers, springing forth and towering over us.
Life spreads its wings, bearer of peace, contentment and colour. The traces of past conflicts (ruined walls, burnt trees, abandoned artefacts left to rust) are gradually engulfed. Flowers insinuate themselves between the stones, overflow onto the cobbles, hide an old trench, burst free of ditches, climb up roofs and leap from one flowerbed to another.
The flowers seize power in all their diversity, profusion and intensity. They represent a dignified, upstanding people that has regained its freedom, here where life is still so frail and ephemeral.

Designers

Colombe PERRIN, Erell PENCREAC’H and Rozanne MORAUX, landscape designers
FRANCE

From left to right: Rozanne Moraux, Colombe Perrin and Erell Pencreac’h

It did not take long for these three Versailles National Higher School of Landscape Architecture graduates, landscapers and designers of parks and gardens in the landscape, Colombe Perrin, Rozanne Moraux and Erell Pencreac’h, to discover the pleasure of working together. Having made a resolute decision to change direction in order to indulge their passion for gardens and give new meaning to their career paths, the “Garden’s Angels”, as people like to call them, have already amassed a wealth of shared experience in the creation of private and institutional gardens. Spurred by the same desire for aesthetic appeal and rigorous application of their skills, they have developed multiple complementarities while preserving their individual touch. Their common signature is promise of an imagination and creative freshness that adds to the structure, elegance and poetry of their productions.

Motivated by the process of creation and with a true passion for the art of gardens, Colombe Perrin has no doubts about the richness of humankind’s relationship with nature. After business school and a career in instructional design, she turned to landscaping and the design of sensitive, authentic and elegant systems: a commitment testifying to a deep-seated desire to improve living environments, whether private or shared, and foster humankind’s rapprochement with the living world. She learned, experimented and gained practical experience at Versailles National Higher School of Landscape Architecture, and rounded out her gardening skills at École Du Breuil in Paris. Her sensibilities are expressed through her drawings and watercolours, essential stages in her creative process. Trained in the multidisciplinary dramatic techniques of the Commedia dell’arte, she retains a special sensibility with regard to the body, its movement, posture and expression. After she graduated, she set up her own studio where she designs and implements projects for institutional concerns and private clients alike: gardens, courtyards, terraces, green roofs, greenhouses, grounds and historical parks. Her projects are incorporated harmoniously and sustainably into the landscape. She draws on what is already there, melding what is to come with what exists.

Based in the green hills of Le Perche, Rozanne Moraux creates gardens that combine precision with movement and structure with delicacy. After 15 years as an arbitrager on international financial markets, she decided to reconnect with her love of nature and enrolled at Versailles National Higher School of Landscape Architecture. Since graduating as a designer of parks and gardens in the landscape, she has sought to perfect the design of gardens overflowing with discoveries and surprises, combining plant life and water in settings to be wandered through or simply contemplated. She develops her projects throughout France.

Observer and dreamer alike, Erell Pencreac’h nourishes her aesthetic awareness on drawings, the landscapes of her childhood, and travelling. While continuing to cultivate her creativity and sensibilities, she nonetheless started out on a “classical” career path, joining the civil service after studying at Science Po. However, she finally made up her mind to reconnect with her dreams through professional reorientation and so be able to indulge her creative passion and love of the art of gardens. She graduated from Versailles National Higher School of Landscape Architecture as a designer of parks and gardens in the landscape in 2014, having acquired a wealth of theoretical knowledge through classes on the history of gardens, along with practical skills via implementation and management of a park and garden design project. Since then, she has initiated garden projects of her own, bringing to bear everything she holds dear: art, history, plant life and technique – mind, matter and manual dexterity. Working with living things requires flexibility and respect for their settings. She draws inspiration both from the harmony of nature and the bustle of city life in order to create vibrant, remarkable and elegant gardens and terraces. Nothing pleases her more than when her sponsors take over her creations and weave their own stories within them. The garden is one of life’s great pleasures, the achievement of a dream, an encounter between humankind and nature, a timeless place for revitalisation and creation. More than anything, she wants her creations to act as bubbles within which visitors find themselves face-to-face with themselves, disconnected from the outside world, places of wellbeing and healing that leave room for curiosity and poetry.