Garden of Imaginary Worlds

André Meunier square, Bordeaux, 2019

Federica imagined a territory of utopian, ecological and social experimentation where art and nature meet and merge.

The experience proposed by the "Jardin des Imaginaires" ("Garden of Imaginary Worlds") echoes the soul of the neighborhood: its proximity to the Saint-Jean station and the river, it is a place of exchange and multiculturalism. It is open to multiple uses, as expressed by its inhabitants during the consultation meetings.

This dreamlike and vegetal universe offers the inhabitants the chance to « change by exchanging » as the Martinique writer Édouard Glissant says.

It consists of three artistic islets:

 carte du Jardin des Imaginaires
 
"The Journey of Imaginary Worlds" bas-relief
   
17 meters long and 3 meters high, this bas-relief with its bold hues, leads us into a dream of mermaids, goddesses and stars where our spirit wanders, provokes encounter and dialogue to open our frontiers.
Federica Matta and the Atelier Gérard Haligon team in front of the bas-relief "Journey of Imaginary Worlds"
on the day of its installation on June 8, 2019, André Meunier square, Bordeaux, France.
 
Mosaics of the "Path of Dreams"
Kaleidoscope of colors and shapes where moon, sun, stars, birds and waves guide our steps. These mosaics awaken our poetic souls while walking along there tinted shapes.
 
The "Gardens of Imaginary Worlds"
On 250 m², seven large structures of 5 to 10 m² allow neighborhood residents to cultivate together these gardens born from their whishes.

Each of these "sculpture-gardens" is a door opening onto seven imaginaries: the Garden of the Seas, the Cosmos, the Unnamed Garden, Garden of the Birds Journey, Garden of Relation, Jaguar Garden and the Lizard Garden.
 
“True diversity is now only found in the Imaginaries.”
Édouard Glissant - Patrick Chamoiseau
Quand les murs tombent (2007).
 

Remagnetizing the city...

In our contemporary cities,
we are looking for points of reference,
water points where we stop...

Each of us moves forward,
carrying a flame
that comes from our invisible world
where we go from time to time.

In this place where we speak
the universal language of poetry,
We go at the speed of intuition.
We feel our being
in connection with another
in all our mysteries and opacities.

In this invisible place,
in this physical and psychic state,
for a moment, we are finally unified.
From this invisible place,
outside any known place,
we receive and emit energy languages
from plants, animals, volcanoes:
the sacred language of poetry…
Then we see the world being magnetized
and creating again an “Elsewhere”
from which we can finally think the world.

The Meunier square allows our imaginaries to
meet.
Its characters, its images, its forces bring together our
common imaginary.

Here is created this common space, this «Elsewhere»
in the heart of the city where we meet.
Montaigne said:
"We always think Elsewhere",
and Rimbaud:
"Real life is Elsewhere".

This «Elsewhere» is the Meunier square
where "Le Jardin des Imaginaires" invites us
“to be changed by exchanging”
as Édouard Glissant said
in order to enter together into the world of Relationship
where “nothing is true, everything is alive”.

Federica Matta
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