2010 edition - Body and soul gardens

01. Metempsycose

published at 08/11/2017

Metempsycose, Festival International des Jardins 2010 - © Éric Sander

Mysterious and light, fanciful and joyful, this garden evokes the soul of those departed and works on the idea of reincarnation. The presence of birds brings peace to its visitors.

Genesis of the garden

“Every day at the end of the 1970s I went to see my grandparents, who lived in a street close to mine. The rue du Haut-Pas in Dieppe.

They lived in a flat on the first or second floor: I can’t remember now. I often saw my grandmother feeding the birds on the kitchen window ledge. A group of feathered creatures, that was to say the least mixed, had become habitual visitors and came to beg for their sustenance every day. Side by side there were pigeons, sparrows and of course a seagull; an emblematic creature of the town, providing the soundtrack of life in Dieppe. It seemed to be the same ones who always came back and my grandmother talked to them. She had a conversation with them.

One day she explained to me that these weren’t in fact just any old birds: they were the reincarnation of members of her family (and so of mine) that she had known well and who had died at various times in the past. Obviously, their appearance had changed a little, but she could recognise them because their fundamental attitudes had remained the same. So Aunt Léontine was still as stingy and surly, Uncle Marcel miserly, Uncle Ferdinand generous and musical, Aunt Alice reliable and cheery, Godmother still ate as much, and so on and so on.

She recognised the dead people who came to visit her. She gave them her little offerings and all these birds found they were given names. Dieppe Metempsychosis.

So it seems that, in my family, our souls transmigrate into birds.” Philippe Caillaud

DESIGNERS

Timothée Blancpain, landscape architect and Philippe Caillaud, artist

FRANCE

From left to right: Philippe Caillaud and Timothée Blancpain

Timothée Blancpain is of Franco-Swiss origin and did his training at the “Ecole Supérieure d’Architecture de Jardin” [Higher Institute for Garden Architecture] in Paris. He worked in the United Kingdom in the horticultural and botanical sector to get to know all about plants: firstly close to Bristol in a “garden centre”, then at Dixter and finally in London at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. After returning to France, he worked in a technical design office for highways and other networks. He then joined the team of a Swiss entrepreneur who was a specialist in Paddock construction. He created a design office and space maintenance structure. In order to specialise in site restoration, he successfully followed a master course in “Historic gardens, heritage and landscapes”.

Philippe Caillaud is a former student of the “École Normale Supérieur” [National Higher Institute of Education] in Cachan and has the agrégation [a high-ranking examination for teachers] in applied arts. He teaches the history of art and the history of photography on a BTS [advanced vocational qualification] course in graphic design at Montaigu, along with semiology on a Youth Publishing degree course at the IUT [Institute of Technology] in La Roche sur Yon. He has been an artist since the age of four (like all artists), and has been exhibiting since 1984. His technique, which is closely linked to nature and animals, has continued to develop. In the 1990s it was very playful and childlike, but has now become more meditative and conceptual in the 2000s. His poetic attitude is often tinged with humour and his universe, full of lightness, is populated with a multitude of butterflies and birds of all kinds.

DESIGNERS

THE GARDEN'S PLANTS