Press kit no. 837-53

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Press kit - Press release - 2026 Call for Proposals - International Garden Festival

Press Kit | no. 837-53

2026 Call for Proposals

Grand-Métis, Canada

International Garden Festival

Grand-Métis, Canada, 2025-09-03 -  The International Garden Festival is launching a call for proposals to select designers to create the new temporary gardens for the Festival’s 27th edition, which will open on June 20, 2026, on the site of Les Jardins de Métis | Reford Gardens.

2026 theme – Mapping Sensitivity
In the wake of the triennial thematic cycle initiated a year ago, Mapping Sensitivity pursues an ongoing reflection on the poetics of space – namely how we relate to our physical surroundings and, more broadly, to the world. While Borders focused on the challenges of organizing and representing geographical space, immediately raising geopolitical concerns, the theme of this 27th edition takes the tournant sensible [“the sensitive turn”].

It draws its inspiration from sensitive mapping, which, far more than a simple alternative to traditional cartography, is distinguished by its consideration of the subjective and immaterial dimensions of a place. Sensitive mapping thus traces the shared representations of a space that is described, lived, and felt. It considers the real experience that users have of a given space and the emotional relationship they develop with it, considering cultural, phenomenological, experiential, cognitive, and contextual factors.

For its 27th edition, the International Garden Festival invites designers from all backgrounds to design a garden using a sensitive, fundamentally inclusive, and relational approach. At once real and fantasized, this garden will take on its full meaning thanks to the users who frequent it, shaping it in turn.

Eligibility of candidates
This call for proposals is open to all landscape architects, architects, visual artists, and multidisciplinary teams from Canada and abroad. The Festival encourages participants to form multidisciplinary teams. Applicants are limited to one proposal, either as individuals or as a team. Participants can be from a single city or country or can cross international boundaries.

Designers are invited to design a garden that can take place in one of the axes of the Festival. The artistic and technical committees of the Festival will identify, in collaboration with the designers, the site that will best showcase their project. Designers will be asked to imagine their garden for exhibition for at least two summers, and to propose strategies for the repurposing or recycling of the garden or its materials after the end of its exhibition.


Deadline to submit proposals
The deadline to submit proposals electronically is MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2025, at 17:00 EST
Applications submitted after the deadline will not be accepted.

International Garden Festival – Forum for Innovation and Laboratory for Experimentation

Created at the turn of the new millennium by Marie-Josée Lacroix, Denis Lemieux, Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec, and Alexander Reford, the International Garden Festival is recognized as one of the most important contemporary garden festivals in North America. Since its inception, more than 180 contemporary gardens have been exhibited at Grand-Métis, and as extramural projects in Canada and around the world. Presented at Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens, at the gateway to the Gaspé Peninsula, the Festival is held on a site adjacent to the historic gardens created by Elsie Reford, thereby establishing a bridge between history and modernity, and a dialogue between conservation, tradition, and innovation. Each year the Festival exhibits over 20 conceptual gardens created by more than 70 landscape architects, architects, and designers from various disciplines.


Les Jardins de Métis | Reford Gardens are located on the shores of the St. Lawrence and Mitis rivers in Quebec, Canada. Created from 1926 to 1958 by avid gardener and plant collector, Elsie Reford, the gardens are designated as a national historic site. Les Jardins de Métis are considered one of the premier gardens in North America.

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For more information

  1. projects.internationalgardenfestival....
  2. www.internationalgardenfestival.com/

Media contact

  • Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens
  • Joël Pelletier, Director of Customer Experience and Communications
  • joel@jardinsdemetis.com
  • -

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Press kit | 837-53 - Press release | 2026 Call for Proposals - International Garden Festival - Competition - In the foreground: Patrick Bérubé, "Back / Ground", 2025. To the right: ONOMIAU, "Les huit collines", 2022-2025. - Photo credit: Jean-Christophe Lemay
In the foreground: Patrick Bérubé, "Back / Ground", 2025. To the right: ONOMIAU, "Les huit collines", 2022-2025.
Photo credit: Jean-Christophe Lemay
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Press kit | 837-53 - Press release | 2026 Call for Proposals - International Garden Festival - Competition - Michael Hyttel Thorø, "Scars of Conflict", 2025. - Photo credit: Jean-Christophe Lemay
Michael Hyttel Thorø, "Scars of Conflict", 2025.
Photo credit: Jean-Christophe Lemay
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High-resolution image : 15.01 x 10.0 @ 300dpi ~ 23 MB

Press kit | 837-53 - Press release | 2026 Call for Proposals - International Garden Festival - Competition - Hermine Demaël + Stephen Zimmerer, "Peek-a-Boo" (detail), 2025. - Photo credit: Martin Bond
Hermine Demaël + Stephen Zimmerer, "Peek-a-Boo" (detail), 2025.
Photo credit: Martin Bond
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High-resolution image : 15.0 x 10.0 @ 300dpi ~ 6.4 MB

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