![\"88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les-paradis-de-Granby-Fig.-4.jpg\")
Les paradis de Granby – Fig. 4<\/em>, 2014\u20132015.
Photo : \u00a9 Catherine Bodmer
[In French] La dormance qualifie un \u00e9tat de vie ralentie. C\u2019est le stade de repos v\u00e9g\u00e9tatif d\u2019une plante destin\u00e9 \u00e0 lui permettre de passer une p\u00e9riode biologiquement d\u00e9favorable. (\u2026) Pendant la dormance, l\u2019activit\u00e9 m\u00e9tabolique est tr\u00e8s r\u00e9duite voire non mesurable : il n\u2019y a pas de synth\u00e8ses, ni d\u2019\u00e9changes, ni de croissance, ni de respiration, ni de production de chaleur, et l\u2019activit\u00e9 est limit\u00e9e au minimum indispensable pour maintenir les structures cellulaires. <\/em>\u2013 Source\u2009: aquaportail.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
![\"88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les-paradis-de-Granby-Fig.-11.jpg\")
Les paradis de Granby – Fig. 11<\/em>, 2014\u20132015.
Photo : \u00a9 Catherine Bodmer
[In French] Son terrain de 6 hectares lui servit de laboratoire ; elle y exp\u00e9rimenta ses associations de plantes et aiguisa son habilit\u00e9 \u00e0 appliquer \u00e0 son jardin la th\u00e9orie des couleurs de la peinture. [Gertrude] Jekyll utilisait litt\u00e9ralement les plantes comme des touches de couleur et cr\u00e9ait des tableaux dans ses plates-bandes. Cette attitude \u00e9tait totalement novatrice, et son partenariat avec [l\u2019architecte sir Edwin] Lutyens donna naissance \u00e0 un nouveau style de jardin, dans l\u2019esprit Arts and Crafts. \u2013 <\/em>Jardin de Gertrude Jekyll \u00e0 Munstead Wood, Surrey (RU). 1897. Le mus\u00e9e des jardins. <\/em>Phaidon. 2002.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Art practices that relate notions of environment and community have the potential to make us rethink human behaviour with regard to nature. The project Les paradis de Granby<\/em>, carried out by artist Catherine Bodmer, explores the notion of reciprocity and the arrangement of our everyday environments. During a residency at the 3e<\/sup> imp\u00e9rial art centre, Bodmer collaborated with five gardeners from the Granby Horticultural Society, who welcomed her into their gardens over the course of four seasons, from September 2014 to September 2015. The artist drew inspiration from these interactions, taking photos of home gardens and producing a collection of forty postcards, published as an artist\u2019s book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Excerpts from conversations with the participants or quotations from essays on gardens and the notion of paradise are transcribed on the back of the postcards. One passage explains that the etymology of the word \u201cgarden\u201d is \u201can enclosure, a space reserved for humankind, where nature (plants, water, animals) is arranged in such a way so as to provide pleasure for humankind.\u201d\u2009<\/sup>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 2 <\/a> - Pierre Grimal and Maurice Levy, \u201cJardins\u2009: De l\u2019Antiquit\u00e9 aux Lumi\u00e8res,\u201d Encyclop<\/em>\u00e6dia Universalis<\/em>, cited in Les paradis de Granby<\/em>, Catherine Bodmer et al., fig. 18, 2015 (our translation).<\/span> In religious history, earthly paradise is associated with the symbolic Garden of Eden, from which Adam and Eve were expelled for having committed the original sin. Another excerpt describes how, today, the garden \u201chas become a closed, isolated, detached site; a moment in time; an occasional oasis.\u201d\u2009<\/sup>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - Raymond Gervais, \u201cDu jardin en musique,\u201d Parachute<\/em> 44 (1986), cited in Les paradis de Granby<\/em>, Catherine Bodmer et al., fig. 41, 2015 (our translation).<\/span> For a long time, the garden form thus represented an absolute ideal where humans could construct a moral order based on a harmonious relationship between people and the natural environment.4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 4 <\/a> - Richard H. Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism,1600\u200a\u2014\u200a1860<\/em> (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 13.<\/span> According to philosopher Michel Foucault, the garden represents the oldest example of het\u00aderotopias, which have the potential to reconcile contradictory spaces.5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 5 <\/a> - Heterotopias exist in multiple forms in real locations, out of synch relative to the time of any one place, yet simultaneously locatable. See Michel Foucault, \u201cOf Other Spaces, Heterotopias,\u201d trans. Jay Miskowiec, Architecture, Mouvement, Continuit\u00e9 <\/em>5 (1984): 48\u200a\u2014\u200a49.<\/span> Inside a garden, nature and culture cohabitate and cannot be conceptualized separately, because this landscape is created through the interrelation between different life forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Les paradis de Granby<\/em>, a human subject uses the medium of photography to represent an object, namely the garden. However, the project reconsiders the relation between subject and object in how it bases this relation on the sensory experience of a garden, rather than on remote observation. For example, Bodmer draws on the advice and gifts she receives from the gardeners to experiment with gardening in her Montr\u00e9al apartment, and documents the process on the project\u2019s blog.6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 6 <\/a> - Catherine Bodmer, Les paradis de Granby<\/em>, project blog, 2014\u200a\u2014\u200a2015, http:\/\/lesparadisdegranby.blogspot.ca\/.<\/span> The postcard format recalls images of picturesque land\u00adscapes or tourist attractions. As a communication tool, the postcard traces a path between people and geographical locations, while also evoking a moment that is frozen in time and space.7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 7 <\/a> - Johanne Sloan, \u201cPostcards and the Chromophilic Visual Culture of Expo 67,\u201d Expo 67: Not Just a Souvenir<\/em>, ed. Rhona Richman Kenneally and Johanne Sloan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 186\u200a\u2014\u200a187.<\/span> However, Bodmer\u2019s photographs move away from the idealized representation of landscape in scenic photographs. Each postcard depicts a section of a garden the artist visited at a specific time of the year, while the series as a whole composes a portrait of the different gardens over a cycle of the seasons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Historian Marina Moskowitz posits that humans construct the landscape, not only by leaving their mark, but also by choosing how and by which means to frame it. The land\u00adscape can thus be considered to be a source of historical information along with artifacts. The history of social, cultural, economic, and political relations can be observed in certain physical markers, such as the size and shape of the yard, the presence or absence of fences, and the layout of the buildings or gardens.8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 8 <\/a> - Marina Moskowitz, \u201cBackyards and Beyond: Landscapes and History, History and Material Culture: a Student\u2019s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources<\/em>, ed. Karen Harvey (New York and London: Routledge, 2009), 67\u200a\u2014\u200a72.<\/span> Through her photography practice, Bodmer delineates a site and examines its components.9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 9 <\/a> - 3e<\/sup> imp\u00e9rial, \u201cCatherine Bodmer,\u201d http:\/\/3e-imperial.org\/artistes\/catherine-bodmer.<\/span> Her garden photographs reveal the characteristics of the environment, the different personalities of the gardeners, as well as the gardening process, including the craftsmanship, composting, storing of materials, and seed preparation. Behind every vision of a garden are different sources of inspiration and influences, as well as various value systems, types of knowledge, skills, and spatial and economic constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bodmer further states that her interactions with the gardeners enabled her to take a practical stance on gardening so as to reconcile her garden ideal with day-to-day reality.10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 10 <\/a> - Catherine Bodmer, conversation with the artist, Montr\u00e9al, November 22, 2015.<\/span> Off-season gardening became a means of drawing attention to something besides the outcome and to attest to a process, a relation to the garden, and the conversations with the participants. In the introduction to her postcard collection, she emphasizes the importance of reciprocity in her method: \u201cI have noticed that when I pay attention to a particular subject\u200a\u2014\u200athe garden, in this case\u200a\u2014\u200athe subject seems to turn towards me, gradually revealing its complexity, its multiple aspects and histories. However, all its richness was always already there, but my perception simply grazed its surface without penetrating it. Perhaps this reciprocal relation is what actually gives things their existence.\u201d11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 11 <\/a> - Catherine Bodmer, Les paradis de Granby<\/em>, fig. 1, 2015 (our translation).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Based on reciprocity, the dialogic approach of Les paradis de Granby<\/em> blurs the dichotomy between subject and object, thus challenging the anthropomorphic perspective whereby humankind dominates nature. While Bodmer\u2019s project focuses on an interhuman perspective based on the experience of the artist and the participants, her interest in off-season gardening allows her to envision a transformation of the status and function of the historical garden. Allowing for the chaotic and cyclical dimension of nature, the artist\u2019s photographs move away from the garden\u2019s aesthetic standard of order. This aspect of the project forms a contrast to the postcard medium, thus re-envisioning the representation of nature in photography. The principle of reciprocity, at work in every step of the process and in the outcome of Les paradis de Granby<\/em>, helps redefine the relation between humankind and landscape, between the gardener and their garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Translated from the French by Oana Avasilichioaei<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les-paradis-de-Granby-Fig.-10.jpg\")
Les paradis de Granby – Fig. 10<\/em>, 2014\u20132015.
Photo : \u00a9 Catherine Bodmer
[In French] Il n\u2019y a plus rien \u00e0 voir, c\u2019est fini.<\/em> \u2013 MP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les-paradis-de-Granby-Fig.-6.jpg\")
Les paradis de Granby – Fig. 41<\/em>, 2014\u20132015.
Photo : \u00a9 Catherine Bodmer
[In French] L\u2019histoire de notre civilisation oscille entre l\u2019id\u00e9e du jardin \u00c9den, d\u2019une part, et sa contrepartie, le jardin des Oliviers. (…) L\u2019\u00c9den ou jardin d\u2019origine \u00e9tait d\u2019apr\u00e8s la Bible un lieu de f\u00e9licit\u00e9, hors du temps, du labeur, de l\u2019histoire. (…) Puis avec la d\u00e9sob\u00e9issance (le p\u00e9ch\u00e9 originel) et le ch\u00e2timent, le jardin qui auparavant occupait tout l\u2019espace devint un lieu clos, isol\u00e9, \u00e0 part\u2009; un moment dans le temps\u2009; une oasis occasionnelle d\u00e9sormais inscrite dans l\u2019histoire (bref, un rappel de l\u2019origine, du bonheur perdu). Le jardin des Oliviers \u00e9tait donc un de ces fragments \u00e9vocateurs du jardin global. En tant que lieu du rachat, de l\u2019expiation de la faute originelle, il devint le tremplin vers une r\u00e9int\u00e9gration possible dans l\u2019\u00c9den. <\/em>\u2013 Raymond Gervais. Du jardin en musique. <\/em>Parachute no. 44. 1986
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les-paradis-de-Granby-Fig.-35-2.jpg\")
Les paradis de Granby – Fig. 35<\/em>, 2014\u20132015.
Photo : \u00a9 Catherine Bodmer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les-paradis-de-Granby-Fig.-35.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/88_DO09_Chicoine_Bodmer_Les-paradis-de-Granby-Fig.-41.jpg\")
<\/strong>Les paradis de Granby – Fig. 6<\/em>, 2014\u20132015.
Photo : \u00a9 Catherine Bodmer
[In French] On voit la structure du jardin, dit R., c\u2019est avec les arbres et les arbustes qu\u2019on commence. Ensuite, les autres plantes et les fleurs viennent remplir les trous.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n