21. Le jardin d’amour

 

This is a garden that is explored. The imagination is sparked by an intriguing space in which both sight and hearing are affected. A wood of red willows haloes passers-by in a pigmented veil that transposes them in a rush of reassuring sensations while a few strange sounds ring out. But how else can you respond to the “I love yous” whispered in the air, other than with a smile, a memory, an emotion and then wandering on? Le Jardin d’Amour (the Garden of Love) is a simple ode to the most noble of feelings – but also the most tortuous and variable – and this is why we can easily lose our way in the garden, erring among the endless rows of red willow trees. 

Le Jardin d’Amour is firstly made up of a series of 35 voices uttering the same words, “I love you”, over and over again, in 35 different languages. The recorded male and female voices are accompanied by a series of brief calls from birds and other animals. The sequence is repeated throughout the time the garden is open. Entering  Le Jardin d’Amour, is to accept the commotion of emotional battles; it is an interval in everyday life that plunges onlookers into an introspective journey.  

Mathieu DUVIGNAUD, landscape architect, Pierre MARIÉTAN, composer and director of the Meetings Architecture Music Ecology and Eleonore COURT, landscape engineer

 

As a landscape architect graduate from the École Nationale Supérieure de la Nature et du Paysage (2001), in 2000 Mathieu Duvignaud worked on the creation of a research group on art and town planning (Bamagonie) before taking part in ICOTEM (LARESCO laboratory at the Faculty of Human Sciences), Department of Sociology, Poitiers, France. He is currently co-directing the Micro Mundo NGO which develops audiovisual and cultural projects jointly with the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. Since 1996, he has been developing an artistic and urban approach called “the Art of chance or looking at the overlooked”. In 2009, he initiated a study on art and technology, Biofeedart, with a view to creating an artistic and educational tool linking the body, emotions and art. He has recently focused this research on works of Land art and urban ecology.

Pierre Mariétan studied for the horn diploma/theory/writing at the Conservatoire de Genève (1955-1960), gregorian and polyphony chapel master at the Conservatorio di Venezia (1958-1960) for orchestra conducting and at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne (1960-1962) with B-A Zimmermann for composition, at the Musik Akademie of Basel (1961-1963) with P. Boulez and at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne (1964-1965) with K. Stockhausen, Gottfried Michael Koenig and  H. Pousseur. Teacher at the University of Paris (I and VIII) from 1969 to 1988 and at the Ecole d'Architecture of Paris la Villette in 1993. Founder and Director of the LAMU in 1979 (Laboratoire Acoustique et Musique Urbaine de l'Ecole d'Architecture of Paris La Villette since 1990). Director of programmes commissioned by the French Ministries of Culture and Equipment. He has composed more than two hundred scores using a wide diversity of sound sources (instrumental, orchestral, electronic and vocal, etc.) that have been played in a great many concerts and classic and new music festivals, and made all kinds of temporary and permanent sound devices/installations.

Eléonore Court is a landscape engineer who graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure de la Nature et du Paysage. She worked as Landscape and Town Planning policy officer for the Parc Naturel de Millevaches in Limousin before working freelance for two years in Rome. She nows works in the field of training and integration in the Institut de l'Ecologie en Milieu Urbain (IDEMU) and in the Jardins Passagers de La Villette.