Festival awards ceremony of the gardens of the French Riviera (06)

In 2017, the Garden of the Sixth Extinction received the Public Award, presented by the famous landscape architect Jean Mus.

The visitor finds a desolate primary land, origin of life, covered with primitive vegetation emerging from a soil composed of rocks and sand. First of all, cycas, ferns and conifers refer us to a vegetal era before the appearance of man on Earth. Subsequently, the vegetation becomes denser, more varied and more colourful.

The sculptures represent the Men who take place in this environment.

The touches of colour on these silhouettes, evoking all of our senses, echo the blooms that fill the garden: we knew how to be sensitive to the world in which we were born, and it is through our senses that we knew how to live in nature. By recognising edible plants, those that heal and those that are dangerous, using them also in the manufacture of tools, while at the same time recognising their aesthetic appeal… Man has organized and shaped the world in his image.

As you get closer to the centre of the garden, sculptures come out of the massifs; when they break apart and disconnect from the plant, they degrade and disappear. This is where man loses his bearings.

Upon arriving near the central water body, the visitor can then see the reflection of his own silhouette, as if disappeared below ground level. This reflection in the water represents movement, a phenomenon that some scientists call «the sixth sense». Is our future movement or extinction...?

David Simonson, American landscape designer from California, in collaboration with Jules Lefrère