Press Release
For immediate distribution
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
FOR THE 12th INTERNATIONAL GARDEN FESTIVAL
THEME: SECRET GARDENS
Grand-Métis (Québec, Canada), September 15, 2010 – The International Garden Festival,
presented at the Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens in the Gaspésie region of Quebec, is preparing
its 12th edition and is issuing an international call for proposals to select designers who will create
temporary gardens that will be presented from June 25 to October 2, 2011. This call for proposals
is open to all landscape architects, architects, designers and artists from Canada and abroad.
For complete information on the call for proposals, consult the web site www.refordgardens.com.
The deadline for the submission of entries is Friday, November 12, 2010, 5 pm EST.
The Theme of the 2011 Festival: “SECRET GARDENS”
This year the theme of the Festival is "Secret Gardens". Each year the Festival chooses a theme
that guides the spirit of an edition while also exploring a very particular aspect of contemporary
garden design.
Secret gardens are part of our lives, figuratively and literally. Who has not had in childhood a
secret space? Everyone has experienced at once the need to create a territory enveloped by
nature and in touch with the inner world. Secret gardens are re-assuring, they wrap us in a
protective cocoon and stimulate the imagination. Both a shelter and a refuge from the world, they
act as doors for a dialogue both with oneself and with the universe. From a scientific perspective
the secret garden offers a complete ecological system in which living organisms live in symbiosis.
This ideal biodiversity makes the secret garden the perfect place to connect with nature and to be
inspired by it.
Secret Gardens of the future
At a time when design and landscape design in general are being pushed towards the superficial
and the materialistic, it is important to bring these disciplines to a more human scale and closer to
existential questions. By focusing on the theme of “Secret Gardens”, designers should consider
their projects with the idea of a "protective" space, full of emotions, mysteries and wonder and
connected to the natural world. For the 2011 edition of the Festival, designers are asked to
imagine the secret garden for the 21st Century and are asked to create a “scripted space”, a
unique place that speaks to the designer but also offers an environment that is perhaps strange
or mothering, healing or inspiring.
The strength of landscape architecture and its role in our society
What will the 2011 Festival gardens look like? They will be at first fertile spaces, personal
platforms of exploration as well as strong voices of community concerns. These experimental
secret gardens will be a way to demonstrate the strength of landscape architecture and its role to
resolve the world’s internal and external conflicts. With the help of plants, living organisms and
materials of all kinds, designers will be able to create stimulating living environments that relieve
us from the daily grind. Such strange and unusual spaces will provide an oasis of calm and place
for thought? What will the secret gardens of tomorrow look like? What role might they play in
contemporary landscape design?
In choosing this theme for the 2011 edition, the Festival wishes to invite landscape architects,
architects, designers and artists to return to the roots of all artistic creation which is to bring beauty
and poetry to life. The "secret gardens" of the 2011 edition will therefore illustrate the role of design in
our culture, which is to bring us closer to our ideals and sustain our lives.
The International Garden Festival, with its history (the past) and vision (the future), offers the ideal
platform for designers who have carte blanche to imagine their secret garden.
The International Garden Festival
The International Garden Festival is recognized as one of the most important events of its kind in
North America and one of the leading annual garden festivals in the world. Since 2000, more than
900,000 visitors have explored 110 gardens created by over 220 designers from 15 countries. The
Festival is a unique forum for innovation and experimentation and an exceptional showcase and
launching pad for participating designers from a host of disciplines. It provides an annual rendez-vous
for admirers of contemporary gardens and design as well as offering a unique space for those
involved in the renewal of this art form. This artistic and tourism event also gives visitors a chance to
discover inspiring spaces bringing together the visual arts, architecture, design, landscape and the
environment.
Winner of numerous awards and recognitions, the Festival has received the prix Hector-Fabre 2007 by
Québec’s ministère des Relations internationales in recognition of the event’s contribution to the
international reputation of Québec and the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspésie regions. The annual
International Garden Festival is made possible by the support of La Fondation de Jardins de Métis, a
non-profit organization whose mission is the development, the education and interpretation of
contemporary art in the field of garden art. The event is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts,
Canadian Heritage, Economic Development Canada, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
and Tourisme Québec.
Les Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens
The Reford Gardens is located on the shores of the St. Lawrence and Mitis rivers in Québec, Canada.
Created by avid gardener and plant collector, Elsie Reford, the gardens were declared a national
historic site in 1995 by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. They are considered one
of the premier gardens in North America and an obligatory stop for all those visiting eastern Quebec.
Hydro-Québec has been a major partner of Les Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens since 1999.
- 30 Source :
Alexander Reford, director
Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens
International Garden Festival
T: 418 775-2222, ext. 222
[email protected]
Emmanuelle Vieira
Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens
Artistic director, International Garden Festival
T: 514 297-2421
[email protected]