Entre (Between)
Entre is a work created specifically for the agriculture school of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France), on a site open to the public. Blurring borders between sculpture, agriculture and garden, this works deploys itself on a hillside.
Entre is constituted by sculptural and architectural structures placed within a field of grasses, cereals and edible species allowing a local food production. Exploring interstices between so-called wild and domesticated species, this polyculture is crossed by mowed paths and rhythmed by sculptures on which it is possible to sit. Throughout season’s metamorphoses, this ensemble creates platforms at the different levels of the relief, spaces in common creating viewpoints of the field’s interior as well as of the surrounding landscape.
The polyculture being created with organics seeds and practices, Entre is thought and activated in coordination with the students, the teachers and the administration of the school. Each year, choices are made: sowing, mowing, harvesting, food processing, transforming and producing, crop rotations and combinations. Multiple other activations are possible: pedagogical programs, theater, concerts, screenings.
For the year 2019, which stands as an experimental stage allowing monitoring the soil and the evolution of crops on the site, it was decided to plant a combination of barley, oats and peas.
Choosing not to harvest the crops the first year allowed us to observe the soil and the consequences of natural reseeding. New crops will be planted in fall 2020, and the finishing touches of the construction side of the work will be completed in the next months.
Conception and production of the work has been developed since 2018 through a multidisciplinary pedagogical programs led with students and the agricultural and horticultural school of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Collaborators are Michel Peyrot, professor of Social-Cultural Education, Fabrice Delmont, professor of Landscape Design and their classes of Horticulture Production and Landscape Design, while involving other students of the school under the direction of Franck Zawadka, director of the Landscape Workshop and Sébastien Houet, Landscape educator.
