AROUND-ABOUT was one of the winning entries in the 2015 edition of the International Garden Festival at the Jardin de Metis, Quebec, Canada. AROUND-ABOUT is a ‘dry Landscape’ installation inspired from the concept of Japanese Zen gardens. A set or large roundabouts is to be placed inside a field of gravel. These roundabouts, whose design is inspired from agricultural machinery, include tines bellow their bottom beam which rakes the gravel in circular patterns as the roundabout spins. The visitors are active participants in the composition of the garden and its constant rearrangement. In contrast to the typical Zen garden, which is usually planned to be seen from the outside of the garden, AROUND-ABOUT is seen, created and experienced from the inside, through a joyful and playful activity. The proposal acts on the tension between order and disorder. The entire garden works in harmony, as a mechanism whose components are in precise proportion and relation to one another. As visitors walk away from the roundabouts, their footsteps violate the orderly pattern of the gravel. Once they get back on the roundabouts and spin them, the garden returns to order.
About Talmon Biran architecture studio:
The two architects that form Talmon Biran architecture studio work on architectural projects as well as artist installations and urban interventions. They have a range of experience working with private, public and commercial clients in a variety of typologies and scales - from interior design and building design to urban planning and landscape design. Their work is characterized by a multidisciplinary approach, born of their experiences in visual arts, dance, photography and video.
About the International Garden Festival:
The International Garden Festival is the leading contemporary garden festival in North America. Since its inception in 2000, more than 150 gardens have been exhibited at Grand-Métis and as extra-mural projects in Canada and around the world. Presented at Les Jardins de Métis, at the gateway to the Gaspé Peninsula, the Festival is held on a site adjacent to the historic gardens created by Elsie Reford, thereby establishing a bridge between history and modernity, and a dialogue between conservation, tradition and innovation. Each year the Festival exhibits conceptual gardens created by more than seventy architects, landscape architects and designers from various disciplines in a pristine environment on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. The International Garden Festival is presented with the financial assistance of many public and private partners: Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage, Canada Summer Jobs, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and Emploi-Québec.