GARDEN OF PARADISE

For the 28th edition of the International Garden Festival of Chaumont-sur-Loire, studio audal was selected to construct the Jardin des Portes as one of the showcased gardens.

Reflecting the theme of the year, gardens of paradise, the Garden of Doors is based on the two-faced god Janus, who represents time and duality, and encapsulates human being’s fascination and fear of their destiny. The figure is also the god of doors, which are symbols of passage and decision-making. 

It is this concept of the door to heaven that this garden aims to illustrate.

Upon arrival, mimicking the act of peeking through the keyhole, the visitor is being shown the illusion of their paradise, thanks to a mirror installation. They can look into this misleading diorama, giving them a false idea of what lays behind the door.

In order to find this paradise the visitor is presented with various paths, guiding them through the garden in either completely black gravel pathways dominated by black plants or white gravel paths complemented with white plants.

ROTATING DOORS

Walking through the garden, the visitors are met with decision-making moments, and they must change course on three various locations. They must push a 360 degree rotating door towards one side or another, choosing to walk a different direction than they did before. The doors open towards opposite paths from the one walked on before, re-enacting the relationship between light and dark, good and evil, sharp and soft.

This garden plays with the symbolism of good and evil, and of black and white. Blurring the binarity and questioning preconceived ideas, it displays soft and fluffy dark plants juxtaposed with thorny and poisonous white beauties.

The planting is composed of a palette of plants in both black and white in either their foliage, stems or flowers. To guide the visitor through the garden during the season, various purple colored bulbs are integrated in the garden, giving an optic illusion of where paradise might be that is constantly moving. The paths in the garden are composed around three central multi-stem Aralia elata, which are a tree with two-faces, like Janus, that are called angelica tree or devils cane.