2025 edition - Once upon a time, in the garden

19. Il était une fois… une forêt

published at 20/02/2025

Il était une fois… une forêt, Festival International des Jardins 2025 © O. Le Coze

The forest is a defining hallmark of fairytales, a wild place that is magical yet frightening. It is home to supernatural creatures, the likes of witches and ogres, depicting a world that escapes the laws of the ordinary world. Steeped in symbolism, the forest is a place of discovery, where the characters come across strangers and must take up perilous challenges - emerging stronger and wiser. It is also somewhere we can easily lose our way. In Charles Perrault’s version of Little Red Riding Hood, she meets a tragic end, gobbled up by the wolf with no one coming to rescue her. The forest of fairytales reveals who we really are, laying bare our emotions and forcing us to look deep inside ourselves.

Just like in a maze, dark, winding tracks form a confusing tangle of pathways, some leading to clearings, and others to dead-ends. Each intersection represents a discovery, a dilemma where the choice is between light or darkness. Marks on the ground indicate the way forward, just like the breadcrumbs in Hop-o’-My-Thumb. Inspired by the strange Faux de Verzy, dwarf beeches that grow in this forest in the Champagne region, trees and shrubs display knotted branches. They evoke fairytale creatures that seem to whisper their secrets to passers-by. The vegetation inhabits the site. Strawberry plants and rosebushes are wondrous and tempting, while lupins and torch lilies exhibit distinctive conical-shaped flowers, not unlike elves’ hats, and the pansies - with their petals shaped like little dwarf faces - seem to watch us furtively.

DESIGNER

Hajer GAALOUL, landscape architect

TUNISIA

Hajer Gaaloul is a Tunisian landscape engineer who graduated from the Institut Supérieur Agronomique in Chott Mariem in 2010. After moving to Belgium, she continued her training by studying landscape architecture at the University of Liège, followed by a specialisation in environmental management at the Université Libre in Bruxelles. For more than 10 years, she has worked in the field of urban planning and landscaping, collaborating with a number of design offices in Brussels. She has been involved in various projects for public and private spaces, mainly in the Brussels-Capital region, throughout the conceptual development and construction stages. In fact, one of these public space projects won the first prize for urban planning. She is particularly interested in the climate change-related challenges facing cities, such as flood management, heatwaves, mobility, social inequality and biodiversity. She looks at how policymakers, designers and citizens can respond to these challenges to create more resilient cities. Driven by a passion for art and aesthetics, she is delighted to share her creativity at the 2025 Chaumont-sur-Loire International Garden Festival. She sees this event as a real opportunity to express her artistic vision through her landscape creations, while celebrating a place that harmoniously combines nature and art.