Sylvestre © Yann Monel
Sylvestre © Yann Monel
Sylvestre © Yann Monel
Sylvestre © atelier Sylvestre
The market gardeners saw the fertile potential of the wild marshes long ago. They established a dialogue between water and land, between the habitat and human activity. Today, the power of nature is eroding the ancient structure of the water gardens. On the plains, intensive agriculture erases the old field boundaries and stretches the landscapes. Meanwhile, the valley bottoms are closing, spontaneous natural dynamics resume and nature expresses its exuberance.
The market gardener looks at the meadow which has taken over the garden and his eyes are drawn to the Cirsium which grows on the fallow land with its large, pale coloured stems.The marsh Cirsium, this old vegetable of the meadows, sown by the wind in the mixture of other grasses. Both thistle and vegetable, wild and companion of cultivated places, a little-known plant belonging to an undervalued botanical genus, it stands on the border between the wild world and the domestic world, charming the sight and the taste. The fate of a plant meets the history of Hortillonnages here.
The garden stages this meeting and develops around the Cirsium oleraceum or cabbage thistle. For the picker, the presence of the cabbage thistle transforms the forest into a garden and the meadow into a crop. Growing spontaneously in damp places and on the banks of rivers in the north and east of France, the cabbage thistle finds a favourite territory in the Hortillonnages of Amiens.
The visitor discovers this little-known plant in its environment among its companions of wet meadows and megaphorbiaies. The plant is described in the garden. It helps visitors to identify it and allows them to form a relationship with it.
Inspired by the concept of para culture, a form of culture within the very heart of the wilderness, Atelier Sylvestre considers the spontaneous environment of the Hortillonnages as a garden. When landing on Le rivage des cirses, the visitor is invited to dream of new forms of a garden where the gardening gesture accompanies the dynamics of the environment.