Do Not Take Peace For Granted >Franco-British Garden of Peace, 2020-2021

Do Not Take Peace For Granted > Franco- british Garden of Peace, 2020-2021

What better idea than a garden to sustainably root the notion of preserving Peace in people’s minds? Do Not Take Peace For Granted questions, through a visual metamorphosis, the fleetingness of the concept of Peace in the collective unconscious. After visiting the museum, retracing the battle of the site of Flesquières and its heavy human toll, a ribbon of light winding limestone invites the visitor to enter a vast meadow of grasses, reminiscent of the remains of a swollen battlefield. From these sheep-like plantations emerge rusty steel tubular structures. These tubes, arranged randomly on the plot, form a slender vertical hyphen towards the sky. They evoke the barrel of the cannon, an object common to all wars. The perception of these inert steel structures evolves as the visitor wanders. He discovers, painted on the tubes, scattered golden fragments that contrast. A notion of “precious” then gradually settles in people’s minds. The visitor now arrives at the top of the field, at the point of convergence of traffic. There, under a birch grove, a sleek semi-circular bench is installed. This generous seat invites to dialogue and listening; two essential elements for the preservation of peace. Comfortably installed on the bench, facing the landscape, the visitor then discovers a large anamorphic gold circle painted on the tubes between which he previously strolled. This golden circle, beyond the strong symbolism of harmony, of the cycles of the natural world and of eternity that it expresses, suddenly embodies the very purpose of the project: a call to the preservation of life, now and forever.

Project carried out with the support of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development : Europe invests in rural areas.