France: Orticolario focuses on sage

A temple to celebrate the sacredness of Sage, a magical, purifying and divinatory plant. “The Sage Temple” is the evocative title of the installation with which Orticolario, a cultural event dedicated to the passion for gardens and their capacity to convey emotions and beauty, will participate in the spring edition of the French gardening event, Les Journées des Plantes, in the park of Domaine de Chantilly from 18 to 20 May 2018.

This year Orticolario will be inspired by Sage, the plant which is the protagonist of the tenth edition (scheduled from 5 to 7 October at Villa Erba, on Lake Como). The installation "The Sage Temple", designed by OLO creative farm, will accompany visitors in a dreamlike, ethereal and emotional, yet concrete and sensory, journey where forms, colours, perfumes and sounds will blend into each other to create an elsewhere place - transcending time and space.

The temple will consist of a square-shaped metal structure, created by Francesco Mazzola of FDM F.lli Mazzola, in which the frames traditionally used by Mantero Seta for silk-screen printing of fabrics and accessories are set. A transparent fabric, veiling and unveiling, will invite visitors to enter: they will be greeted by mirror-like walls – to reflect (on) the presence of man in the garden – and by walls of Sage. And here is the core of the installation, the plants of Sage, the "guardian deities of the temple”. Four varieties will be presented, all supplied by Vigo Gerolamo nurseries in Albenga: Salvia icterina, Salvia purpurea, Salvia tricolor, Salvia officinalis.

“Our plants are 100% Ligurian, from birth to sale – comments Francesca Vigo, who runs the family company Vigo Gerolamo together with her father and brothers – They grow under the Mediterranean sun, without artificial heat and light".

The sages "will speak” and the visitors will be able not only to smell their scents and touch their leaves, but also to listen to them: the voice of the sages can be heard thanks to special sensors put on their roots and leaves transforming the impulses of the plants into sounds, this being the result of the continuous research by Music of the Plants on the ability of nature to communicate with us.

Finally, at the centre of the structure, protected by invisible walls and hidden from prying and profane eyes, the Infinity mirror, a sort of vortex made up of mirrors.

“Inside 'The Sage Temple' the playful confrontation with oneself purifies –
explains Mattia Amadori, director and owner of OLO creative farm – The perfumes of the vertical gardens uplift the senses, and when we listen to the voices of the sages we are invited to reflect on the relationship between man and nature".

For more information:
Orticolario
info@orticolario.it
www.orticolario.it