In the Ackerman cellars, a mineral temple where plant life evolves, Audrey Guimard and Julien Colombier have created what Michel Foucault calls a "Heterotopia" (from the Greek topos, "place", and hetero, "other": "other place") which evokes concrete spaces, out of time, which harbor the imagination. These localized utopias are well known to children: of course, it's the bottom of the garden, of course, it's the attic, or better yet, the Indian tent erected in the middle of the parents' big bed. For Audrey Guimard and Julien Colombier, these are the caves and lairs of ancient tales, the marvelous gardens of the Thousand and One Nights.
Their goal: to go "backward", "against the current", bring the stone its place of origin, sculpt it, transform it into primitive, sculptural forms, caskets, which host in their heart lush vegetation and surreal forms such as Julien Colombier's "foliage masks".
In the heart troglodyte galleries, in this extraordinary place conducive to escape and dreams, they have chosen to create a labyrinthine course composed of four monumental sculptures similar to islands of greenery emerging from the ground in order to provoke a visual hallucination in the visitor in four stages. A false paradise suggested by four mineral architectural structures that will house lush vegetation supported by colorful light atmospheres. Composed of both plant forms born from the imagination of the artists but also real plants, the work is intended to be scalable to let nature take back its rights over the three years of the residency, at the rate of plant growth. A timeless stroll, like a Jules Verne “Journey to the Center of the Earth”.