avent gardeners

- In Vitro Montreal 2001
This was Nip Paysage's first collaborative project, for the Jardins de Metis festival. It is about the forest, culturally-what it means now (a source of timber) and what it was, Langevin says. It is about conservation and the genetic code of the pine cone. This genetic code is buried in the color sequence of the jars. A statement from Nip Paysage reads:' Fundamentally, the forest fulfils three roles: cultural reference, industrial resource and leisure space. Questioning the aesthetics and mythological
aspects of forestry, the garden exhibits, in the foreground, a nomadic spruce facade growing out of blue barrels. A linear wood floor runs through the site and is crossed by blue plastic woodchip veins, on which are installed metal structures. Each steel frame is lined with enigmatic jars. The numerous transparent jars are filled with "spruce gum" and "pin cone jam",
simultaneously provoking aesthetic pleasure and question: has not the contemporary forest transformed itself into a laboratory, a factory, a supermarket, a museum or a leisure centre? Finally, the ground plane
recalls the drama of deforestation and burning of woody matter. Metaphorically, the carbonized zone is transformed into
playground, scattered with giant transonic blueberries used for sitting and bouncing around.'











This intriguing installation was sited adjacent to and partly the University Hospital's blood donation and laboratory wing
- hence the color of the armchairs, some of which were made of polyester and some of fibreglass. Lit up at night (and the winter nights are long this far north), there is something of a Magritte quality about the piece, with the glowing chairs ranged around two grassy areas planted with birches, pine and alder flanking the glass passageway that links the new blood-
testing department to the main hospital. Several small, paved terraces allow patients to survey the landscape areas.