Le potager embarqué > Florent Morisseau, 2010

Until the landscape designer Florent Morisseau took it on, this plot was no more than a mass of overgrowth, a dense proliferation of rampant, unruly vegetation. It was on this muddle of brambles and willows that the gardener based the construction of his project Potager embarqué : the staging of the gradual transformation of wooded plot into vegetable beds…floating ones ! He gradually intertwined the overgrowth, creating braids of plants, then a framework of squares colonised by a host of different vegetables. As it nears the canals, the on-land maze transfers its labyrinth to the water : by tradition stranded on the bank, the leeks and pumpkin patches are here placed into floating crates. They float on the water until their last stage : the boat. A shimmer of colours and scents, these vegetables grow in a raft and only leave to be made into soup or ratatouille. This concept illustrates the desire to re-associate local production and consumption : in the heart of the Hortillonnages, this marriage is based on mobility. It’s only one step, one canal, from marshland to plate…and even less if it floats !