This year marks the tenth anniversary of Cahors June Garden Festival, a French summer landscape art competition. One of the three winning projects of the 2015 edition was Les Voûtes Filantes (‘The Shooting Vaults’) by Atelier YokYok, Ulysse Lacoste and Laure Qaremy – a collaborative project for the 16th century gothic cloister of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Cahors, south-west France.
The installation revolves around the four existing diagonal paths of the cloister’s inner garden. The artists linked eight arches of various architectural styles (quadrant, semicircular, ogee and lancet arches), placed at both ends of each trail, with no less than 78 kilometers of stretched blue string. The result is a light structure of semi-transparent tunnels, meeting in the center to form an inner “secret cloister”.
“Set aside of its stone-build big sister, an enchanting garden deploys, extends and tends under the stroller’s curious eyes. The sacred architecture that faces it is convoked in its entire syncretic dimension. Arcs of all origins are linked to one another by a colorful woven structure that performs with light and mystery; hence revealing a light dematerialized architecture, that the stroller admires its variations while wandering in the vaults. By these suspended Ariadne’s threads, the stroller is guided towards the center of the lot, a secret cloister. The glance rests then rises.” – Atelier YokYok say describing the experience of their winning installation. Tempting to live it in reality!
By: Ana Cosma
Edited by: Zeynab Matar
