“CHAOS (and) Order in the Garden”
THE FIFTH EDITION OF THE MEDITERRANEAN LANDSCAPE BIENNIAL
Giarre, April 24, 2024 – The Call for Ideas for the fifth edition of the Radicepura Garden Festival, the Biennale of the Mediterranean garden, which will take place in the homonymous park in Giarre (Catania) in 2025, under the theme Chaos (and) Order in the Garden, was presented in Milan at Palazzo Bovara during the Design Week. The meeting was attended by Michele De Lucchi (AMDL Circle), Mario Faro (CEO Piante Faro and creator of the Radicepura Garden Festival), Antonio Perazzi (Studio Antonio Perazzi and artistic director of the event).
At the center of the conversation were the topics of the call – Plants, matter, chaos, and harmony – which become a research theme, proposing to investigate the relationship between matter and garden as a balancing element in the enduring duality between chaos and harmony, defining a new approach to the environment that imposes, on landscape design, new perspectives of thought and intervention.
“Chaos and harmony, disorder and order, are the paradoxes of existence. Our ability to understand and know is made by our ability to bring together the farthest opposites. There is white and black, there is darkness and light, there is right and wrong. There is the known and the unknown, there is the understandable and the incomprehensible. Connecting antagonisms is a dialectical and dynamic game, which produces energies and new ideas bringing change. We humans are inventors of stories, to do this we need a tuning fork, to make our minds oscillate and tune from one side to the other of the reasoning. And that’s what we also do in architecture, to set in motion and in relation experiences, people, functions, and forms, to create a more innovative and harmonious system, in which everyone is happy and aware in facing their daily life,” commented Michele De Lucchi on the theme chosen for the next edition of the festival.
“The chaos garden is the natural choice for those who have little time to realize dreams because from chaos not only nature is reborn, but ideas are organized. The garden at this moment is at the crossroads between landscape, natural, and artificial; traditional barriers have been broken. Even geometry must change. It is a theme that can also be declined sentimentally, on which to give natural vent to the eco-anxiety that bombards us every day,” said Antonio Perazzi on the sidelines of the presentation.
“Chaos and order in the garden, the theme of the next call, is a dualism that well synthesizes the identity of Radicepura that stands at the foot of Etna, a natural element by its nature double, mountain and volcano, opposing elements that generate a unique biodiversity. We have always been in contact with this double soul that manifests itself in lush and wild nature. We have this contradiction within us, it is an identity element for us and we hope it will be a source of inspiration for all the designers who will propose ideas and visions for the next edition of the Radicepura Garden Festival,” concluded Mario Faro.
The call, distributed nationally and internationally, dedicated to designers under 36, will be open until September 15, and foresees a selection process divided into three phases, to identify 7 winning projects that will be called to realize their garden in the Radicepura park, where they will be on display for the entire duration of the Festival until the next edition. The winners will be selected by the Festival’s jury.
The gardens must be a celebration of biodiversity, natural and anthropic Mediterranean landscape; they must be original, innovative, attractive, accessible, capture the attention of visitors, and clearly illustrate their design idea and message. The Festival will be open for a period of six months and, therefore, it will be necessary to consider the evolution of the garden during this period; at the conclusion of the event, the garden that has evolved best over the six months will receive the Gardenia Award, a special recognition from the garden magazine.
Radicepura Garden Festival and Radicepura botanical park
The Radicepura botanical park was born from the Faro family’s desire to make available their botanical collection, the result of 50 years of work and research to protect biodiversity, the true wealth of this territory. With this objective since 2017, the Radicepura Garden Festival has been held, the first international event dedicated to promoting the culture of the Mediterranean garden, involving major players in landscaping, art, and architecture, designers, and scholars. Within a botanical path hosting rare species and unique specimens such as Encephalartos, a genus of fossil cycads belonging to the Zamiaceae family, visitors encounter permanent installations and gardens created by François Abélanet, Paolo Pejrone, Michel Péna, Antonio Perazzi, and Andy Sturgeon, in dialogue with works by contemporary artists such as Emilio Isgrò, Alfio Bonanno, and Adrian Paci. The park is located in the shadow of Mount Etna, where fertile soil has allowed the proliferation of over 3,000 plant species, totaling 5,000 varieties of plants. The 5-hectare park is energetically and hydrologically self-sufficient. Adding to the charm of the spaces are the “Palace” of the Radicepura Foundation and the “Palmento,” a jewel of industrial archaeology where Mount Etna wine was produced, a setting for the film “The Godfather – Part II.” In the “Greenhouse,” tropical plants are preserved, including Ravenala madagascariensis and Cyathea australis.
Press Office
Stilema – Turin
Anna Gilardi
Annalisa Praitano – annalisa.praitano@stilema-to.it – tel. 333 3103490
Simona Oliva – stampa@stilema-to.it – tel. 389 4886947
