[deadline: 12/11/2010]
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 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. The Festival encourages participants to form multidisciplinary teams to favour an approach that encompasses of the various design disciplines. This call for proposals is thus open to: - Canadian and international designers | - Multidisciplinary teams composed at least one landscape architect accompanied by an architect, designer, artist, engineer, scientist, botanist, etc. | The design and construction of the temporary gardens will be overseen by the artistic and technical committee, consisting of the director, the artistic director, and the technical co-ordinator of the Festival. The candidates chosen to participate in the Festival agree to work to the schedule established by the Festival. Info: www.refordgardens.com