Formerly open and cultivated, the Hortillonnages site tends to degrade when plots are abandoned which leads to the ageing of the vegetation and the canals silting up. To remain viable, the plots and their surroundings must be maintained by the owners to prevent them from disappearing. The balance of this exceptional natural site is therefore fragile.
The Cadastral Islands project questions the situation by researching the notion of private property and cadastral boundaries and then marking out the boundaries of the plots with wooden posts.
In time, these posts could retain sediments and be used to [re]create the islets, thus bringing them into line with the land register. The project proposes to illustrate this process by establishing three floating vegetated islands inside the plot: the pioneer island, the reed island and the fixed island.
The original situation in the land register is no longer the case. This landscape exhibit, using the opposite approach, makes the land register a lever in favour of ecological renaturation and questions how we map our environment.
The artist
PLEIN CHAMPS ET CIE Valentin BURDLOFF, Kevin GAUTHIER, Perinne MALAUTIER