Bord à Bâbord | Ideation for the 2025 Jardins de Métis Festival
Theme: Borders

Located in Quebec, Canada, along the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, the Jardins de Métis—also known as the Reford Gardens—are renowned for their innovative landscape designs and international garden festival. In 2025, the festival invites designers from around the world to rethink the notion of borders within the current postcolonial context. Participants are challenged to explore the idea of boundaries not only as dividing lines but as spaces of encounter, transition, and transformation. This year’s theme encourages a reimagining of the garden as a dynamic environment that blurs disciplines and actively engages visitors in a dialogue about borders in all their forms.

Bord à Bâbord embraces this exploration by repurposing recycled sails to evoke the discovery of the Saint Lawrence River. Attached to a wooden structure reminiscent of a boat’s hull and positioned parallel to the shoreline, they create a symbolic boundary between land and water.

Carried by the wind, the sails animate the installation and immerse visitors in an evocative experience. Their movement, echoing the waves and currents, evokes navigation and transforms the pathway into a sensory crossing. Like sentinels, they embody the fluid boundary between these two worlds, challenging conventional notions of separation. At the same time, they emphasize the importance of preservation and the reuse of materials considered obsolete, resonating with the postcolonial call to rethink and transform existing narratives.

Author: atelier Chenard @atelierchenard

Team

• Alec Chenard @alecchenard

• Jérome Bélanger @jeromebelanger (École de Design de l’Université du Québec à Montréal)

• Émilie Rooke @emilierooke (M. Arch Université de Montréal)