When Gilles Clément talks about the “wandering plants phenomenon”, he evokes the poetry of "unforeseeable landscapes" : "Plants travel. Grass mostly. They silently move in the way of the winds. Nothing can stop the wind. By harvesting clouds, one would be surprised to get imponderable seeds mixed with loess, fertile dusts." (from Gilles Clément, Eloge des vagabondes - www.gillesclement.com)
Following this idea, "Paysages en exil" seeks to create, along the hospital of La Grave in Toulouse, an experimental journey in which the visitor is invited to explore an unlikely landscape, a condensation of climates, a mix of Natures from all over the world. In an acclimatization space, a long agricultural greenhouse, medicinal plant seedlings are prepared originating from all five continents. “Blindly” picking one of them up, the visitor continues his journey and enters a thick cloud, a dense mist formed by the spraying of the Garonne river on its bank and the Viguerie footbridge. Here the microscopic droplets naturally lower the temperature from 35°C to 19°C, sight is blurred, humidity saturates the air creating a new climate, an atmospheric architecture. At the end of this vaporous trail, discovering what species he picked up and what diseases they may cure, the visitor is invited to replant the seedling that he has carried into a new habitat, wherever it may be. Other datas : The event took place from july 1st to july 4th, on the left bank of the Garonne next to the hospital of La Grave. The hospital recently closed, it will soon be transformed in a cultural center. To celebrate its mutation, Imaginez Maintenant decided to launch a call for projects, with the theme “lightness”. The project PAYSAGES EN EXIL deals with ideas such as invisible landscapes, climatic distortion, sensorial experiences, alternative medicine, evolution of our environment… The green house was 50m long, and the cloud about 100m long. In four days, the event Imaginez Maintenant received about 17 000 visitors inside the hospital. Our project, located outside the hospital and on a quite busy walkway, received about 25 000 visitors, most of them not even aware of the art event, but just attracted from the other bank by the large cloud, on these heatwave days (temperature reached 34°C on the 1st of july) The mist system has been developed with french company Dutrie, one the offices who carried out the Blur Building, by Diller+Scofidio in Yverdon Les Bains (2002). More than 2000 seedlings were offered to the public. They had been selected and prepared with the Agricultural highschool of Auzeville. The temperature diagram has been produced with Photoshop from a approximated thermal survey with 10 regular thermometers, at 3pm on the 1st of july).
Authors : Nicolas Dorval-Bory & Raphaël Bétillon
Team : Nicolas Dorval-Bory, Raphaël Bétillon, Paula Gonzalez Balcarce
