American Peace Garden – “Lands of Promises”, 2023

Yesterday a site of conflict and destruction, today a place of reflection and celebration of peace, the Navarin Farm memorial and ossuary is part of the shared history between France and the United States. This relationship, as old as the United States itself, is marked by mutual aid and the defense of common values ​​of tolerance and freedom.

The “Lands of Promises” garden evokes the time necessary for reconstruction and the importance of exchanges to achieve it.

Inspired by the marks that war has left on the landscape, particularly the front line dug by soldiers, the garden consists of embankments separated in their center and stone slabs placed as hyphens between them. Visitors can thus move between these spaces and sit on the seating areas located on the edge of the embankments. Furthermore, while during the war, the trench was often the only horizon for soldiers, the garden symbolically opens up to the surrounding landscape in order to offer new perspectives.

Each embankment has its own identity, its own community of plants that, over time, will move, mix and coexist with other plants, thus enriching the plant compositions. Among the chosen plants, some are present in the United States, while others only grow in Europe. However, they are all tolerant of the sometimes harsh conditions of the site and adapted to dry terrain.

Including a wide variety of ground cover plants, the garden composition contributes to its ecological quality and sustainable character through this diversity. It thus illustrates the understanding and resilience that are necessary not only in the garden, but also more generally for humanity to flourish and fulfill all its promises.