Hortus
Now that peat extraction has disappeared and vegetable farming has been reduced to very small areas, the hortillonnages are now used by the people of Amiens for pleasure or hunting, but also and above all for tourism.
The reason why the islets have been preserved - thanks to ongoing, fastidious work - is that the aim is to maintain the site in a given state, which is considered collectively to be of interest for its heritage, aesthetic or ecosystemic value. Although commonly perceived and designated as an exceptional ‘natural’ area, the current face of the site has been shaped by centuries of human activity, much of which has now disappeared. We come to contemplate the landscape that has been shaped over time. The installation is based on the paradoxical nature of the site, questioning the commonly accepted distinction between the natural and the artificial, the wild and the developed, the space of production and the space of representation.
So what is so special about this place? Is it a historical heritage, an exceptional ecosystem, the last of the hortillons at work, or the result of the colossal work of previous generations? Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the artificial and the natural, and so much the better. Can we separate the scenery from the authentic?
Just as a play cannot exist without an audience, a landscape exists through the eyes of those who look at it. Actor or spectator, the roles here don't seem fixed, quite the opposite. Everyone who visits this place plays a part in the fragile balance of the site, and contributes to the production of the landscape in its current state.
By building a form of « proscenium », the installation will reveal the play that is played out around it every day, and question the roles of everyone involved.
Which side is the audience on? Which side are the actors on? Here, because of the symmetry of the installation, evoking a theatre where the curtain hides neither the backstage nor the audience, it's hard to know which side everyone is on.
As the project is rooted in a wider context than the hortillonnages, all the materials and construction techniques used are references to the history of the Amiens region.
The structure, made of regional wood, reinterprets traditional « colombage » with an unusual infill: a textile, identical to that used in theatre curtains. Made from linen grown and spun in Normandy, the fabric is hand-dyed in the region using the emblematic Amiens plant: Waide, or Isatis Tinctoria.
