Famous for its cathedral, Amiens is often baptized “ the little Venice of the North”, a nickname that the Picardy town owes to its hortillonnages, an interlacing of islets of 300 hectares founded by man eight centuries ago. Old marshes, peat land conquered from the marshes of the Somme, cleaned up in Roman times, and became the largest place of market gardening in northern France in the Middle Ages.
“At the beginning of the XXe century, a thousand market gardeners worked on these islands before abandoning them over the decades to go and work on dry land, which is more conducive to a good yield”, recalls Gilbert Fillinger, founder of the Festival des hortillonnages, in 2010. “Since the great flood of 2001, there were only seven farmers left, the place had become a wasteland that we wanted to enhance by imagining an artistic and landscape festival on these lands to be visited by boat and on foot. »
The festival exhibits each summer since its foundation about fifteen works, some of which have become permanent, of landscaping, architecture and art. “which make it possible to apprehend art in a very instinctive way so that all audiences are affected. But also to question very current questions, such as permaculture or short circuits, since we include a vegetable part in the proposals”, recalls the president of the festival, which is held this year from May 27 to October 15.
Landscapers, architects, French, German, Dutch, Belgian, Czech, Taiwanese, Italian visual artists… invite visitors to explore these plots of greenery on foot, by bike, by boat. Often young creators, some of whom then won the AJAP (Albums of young architects and landscape architects), a grand prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture. And, at the end of the festival, the integration project, active all year round, continues its mission by maintaining this site classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and threatened with siltation.
Hortillonnages Festival, in Amiens, from May 27 to October 15. artetjardins-hdf.com
Cultivate yourself without blinkers
“The one that was the first house of culture built in France accommodates in the same site theater, dance, music, cinema and restaurant. This global vision of culture, wanted by André Malraux, where the State and local authorities work equally, a space for conviviality and encounters, is truly the symbol of another era in the era of very specialized places. The Maison de la culture also produces with its Blue Label, one of the biggest jazz labels in Europe. »
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