19BIS. RÉSURRECTION, ÉLOGE DE LA DÉFAILLANCE
published at 02/10/2017
The garden is an invitation to observe things differently, entire through metaphors and paradoxes. It is a free, meditative stroll, which encourages us to consider the “human condition” and calls forth questioning: what if sins were magnificent sources of life force and of energy able to crack concrete?
JURY’S SPECIAL PRIZE
Awarded on the 4th of July 2014 by a jury of professionals renowned in the world of garden art
The lady who designed the garden viewed sins as being the “Lifeblood of humanity”. Sins offer us the chance to lean forward and look into the hollow of every fissure and, perhaps, find there a hidden meaning, one that is unique to each individual.
The garden gives us the deceptive feeling of being able to see everything at first glance. However, and quite to the contrary, we must go through the garden carefully to be able to discern the form that is taken by the pervious concrete, the sins that it signifies. In that way, we see crevices into which plants slowly slide to later open out into the original forest of ferns, horsetails, and mosses.
DESIGNER
Ana MORALES, landscape artist
FRANCE
Born in Paris and native to the Canary Islands, Ana Morales witnessed the metamorphosis of her "territory" from a very young age. Early on, she became concerned with the possibility of acting for its "intelligent beautification". Since her early childhood, she was given an artistic education (music and dance), and she was naturally drawn towards cinema, where she assisted directors both in organising shoots and in artistic and set design duties.
However, bringing out the best of a place by "framing" it well, and concealing its "truth" was not enough for her. She desires to "sustainably" transform space, in all its dimensions.
Her ambition to contribute to improving the landscape comes as a result of these awareness-enhancing experiences.
Thus, she enrolled at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure du Paysage de Versailles, graduating in 2013, with her own resources with which to reinvent the landscape: environmental, historic, social and aesthetic knowledge, and an open-mindedness to carry on learning.
Her ambition is to reconcile "Nature and her forces" with humankind. She draws inspiration principally from her travels, cinema and its composition, mankind, her quest for happiness, her emotions and, lastly, from Nature and her power, her intelligence and her infinite beauty.
For Ana, a garden comes into its own when the visitor takes his or her time to feel, and thanks to this pause, is able to reflect on the world, and his or her world. As all is not given away immediately, one has to search for and find a meaning, one's own meaning - identify this meaning, identify oneself, feel oneself there, feel oneself, feel... Emotions... the lifeblood of the human being.
To be at Chaumont-sur-Loire is to have the opportunity and the luck to work with a controversial material, acting as road infrastructure, to relate it to the plant world, finally turning it into something poetic.
