Are you suffocating in this scorching heat? In “This way the exit†, the cultural newsletter of philosophy magazine, Cédric Enjalbert invites you to refresh yourself by strolling among the most beautiful creations of the International Garden Festival, at the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire.
“That decor!” The Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire International Garden Festival began with the theme this year: “The garden makes its cinema†. The actress Sabine Azéma is the happy godmother, who created her “cinemazema†. It unfolds like an open-air projection room where you can see, between the buzzing of bees and the flight of butterflies, the first animated film in Technicolor, Trees and flowers, produced by Walt Disney. Two trees love each other, but their love is thwarted by an old branch which, led away, decides to set fire to the forest… Here the plants are more than just decoration: animated beings. Among the twenty ephemeral gardens created, one of them evokes the planet Pandora, taken from the universe ofAvatar, where anthropomorphic plants interact with their environment.Â
Plant planets
Because, in our world, the garden is“planétaireâ€, taken within the limits of the biosphere, as recalledGilles Clémentthe theorist of“garden in motion†.ÂHe states in his inaugural lecture at the College de France, published in 2012 under the titleGardens, landscape and natural engineering,that“the happy landscape artist, capable of maintaining and developing life in his garden, does not interfere in the natural relationship of exchanges, he enhances it through an appropriate scenography†. Dans sa composition Planets, the Japanese artist and directorMomoko Setopoetically paid homage to this cosmic scenography.
Suspended time
“In the garden,Âcontinues Gilles Clémentthe system of time gained or lost collapses by itself, it simply has no reason to exist. The natural therapy of gardening comes from suspended time, that which we cannot control but which, in a certain way, keeps us on our feet. When we put a seed in the ground, a future is announced, the past fades away, there is no nostalgia for the garden. The garden is a privileged place of the future, a mental territory of hope.†ÂIt is also in this relationship to suspended time and hope that the garden relates to cinema, because it is a projection, representing a closed universe potentially open to the whole world. Everywhere, the garden designates both the enclosure and the paradise and, in Persian, it is even said“pairidaezaâ€. À Chaumont, the Franco-Iranian actressÂGolshifteh Farahani a dessiné The Garden of Minâb like a retreat summoning the four elements, according to a plan starting from a central point, animated by a continuous fire. It evokes the traditional Persian garden of whichMichel Foucault made the model of the“hétérotopieâ€of the place which summons the cosmos in miniature, constituted around a central space which is“like the navel, the navel of the world in its middle†,Âfrom where the water springs. And où se ressourcerÂ! »
International Garden Festivalat the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire: 478, le Château, 41150 Chaumont-sur-Loire.
➤ This text comes from our weekly newsletter “This way the exit”: three cultural recommendations, illuminated through the prism of philosophy, every Friday at 6 p.m. Subscribe, it’s free!
