The International Garden Festival has issued a call for proposals to choose designers to create the new temporary gardens for its 25th edition.
The festival, which is set to open on June 21, 2024, will take place on the site of Les Jardins de Métis – Reford Gardens and the theme will be “The Ecology of Possibility” in celebration of this milestone.
Since the festival’s first launch at the turn of the millenium, the event has been commited to the exploration and renewal of the art of the garden. The inaugural edition showcased a total of eight original creations that brought the nature-culture dialectic at the forefront.
While the festival still takes into consideration the “hows and the whys” of the contemporary garden, the concepts and perspectives have changed. Outlooks on several issues has shifted over the last 25 years and vocabulary has diversified. Now, more than ever, there is also an urgency to act when it comes to accelerating climate change.
In present day, the garden has a social responsibility since it preserves and supports biodiversity. Plants are also selected after considering the needs and behaviours of each species. The characteristics of the site to be developed as well as their evolution are also carefully studied.
As a result, the festival is encouraging participants to form teams. The call for proposals is open to all landscape architects, architects, visual artists, and teams from Canada and beyond. Applicants are limited to one proposal, either as individuals or as a team and participants may be from a single city or country, or from across international boundaries.
Designers are invited to design a garden that can either take place on the main festival site in Grand Métis, Quebec, or in one of the Garden Festival’s satellite locations.
In collaboration with the designers, the artistic and technical committee of the festival will identify the site that will best showcase their project. Additionally, designers will be asked to imagine their garden for exhibition for a minimum of two summers. They will also be asked to propose strategies for the repurposing or recycling of the garden or its materials following its exhibition.
The deadline to submit proposals electronically is November 20, 2023, at 5:00 p.m. EST. Applications submitted after the deadline will not be accepted. Designers whose work has been exhibited in one of the last three editions of the festival will not be eligible for this call for proposals.
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