23. Folkflore

Folkflore identifies with the current context of the digital age, globalisation and the dizzying pace at which technology is progressing, revealing all these factors that are having a profound effect on our perception of time, materiality and our relationship with others. The creation opposes the notion of homogenisation that is attached to globalisation, reflecting the views of the poet and philosopher from Martinique, Édouard Glissant (1928-2011), and presenting a view of the garden as a cultural construction.

Also designed to showcase and spread the word, the garden uses the concept of weaving, considered as “living heritage” in Quebec, an effect which alters as visitors move around the garden and depending on the position of the sun. The playful shadows created and the chosen pattern featuring repetitive vertical coloured lines add to the perceptual experience of the garden, reflecting interlacing warp and weft threads. Day after day, Folkflore weaves an arrow sash over and over, thanks to the subtle effect of shade and light.

As a glimmer of hope on the gloomy Anthropocene horizon, Folkflore reflects the vision of a future that is ecologically, economically and culturally responsible. This Métis-Quebecois garden is a hybrid, resilient creation that flaunts its strong identity, encouraging the development of an essential unifying spirit.

Luu Nguyen is a landscape architect. Her work was recognised very early on for her sensitivity and intuitive understanding of the interactions between architecture, its context and the landscape. Her dual-training has provided her with a unique, comprehensive approach to her projects, combining the geographic, physical and historic aspects of a site, its uses, appropriation and collective projection.

Émilie Tanguay-Pelchat is a landscape architect, set designer and artist. She has 21 years’ experience under her belt in the fields of landscape architecture, urban design and artistic set design. She has designed and led numerous projects for private and public clients, and museums and related institutions, and has also worked on a series of partnerships with the planning department of Montreal University and the museology department of Quebec University in Montreal.

Alexander Reford is the director of the Jardins de Métis | Reford Gardens. He is a historian and graduate of Oxford and Toronto Universities, and was Dean of St. Michael’s College at Toronto University from 1986 to 1995. He is the great-grandson of Elsie Reford, the creator of the Jardins de Métis, and participated in founding the Amis des Jardins de Métis, the charity that transformed these Nordic gardens into a must-see cultural destination and open-air museum. 

Ève De Garie-Lamanque has been artistic director for the International Garden Festival at the Jardins de Métis since autumn 2022. She graduated with a Master’s degree in Canadian art history from Concordia University and was contemporary art curator at the Musée Régional de Rimouski for a decade.