Time Grows By

In Nantes, the “Extraordinary” Garden bears its title in reality for its astounding temporal properties. There, past, present, and future coexist within a single space. And they speak. The Loire flows backwards, and on its bank, the silhouette of the Cité des Imaginaires is already visible, only to disappear again.

Duration dilates the bamboo and the rice paper plant. A little blue ceramic lake laps at its shores beneath the leaves. The women working at the bygone brewery dance there. The falls are a geyser rewinding its waters and in the river’s ford, blocks of granite split open to free fragments of the future.

Here we go. The soundwalk has already begun. Around the day in eighty worlds. Can you feel it? The imagination permeates you. Already you cannot go back to the way things were : behind you, the stairway has dissolved. Your present decompensates. Your memories percolate toward the future. Time no longer goes: it knows, it gnaws the stones beneath your feet, it would be a tuft of grass in your fissures, it was flower and fruit — it grows by.

Welcome to the garden of forking paths.

A soundwalk by Alain Damasio and Floriane Pochon, for the Jardin Extraordinaire of Nantes and the future Cité des Imaginaires. Commissioned by the Jules Verne Museum and Nantes Metropole with the support of Direction Nature & Jardins, Le Voyage à Nantes, Tarabust, and Phaune Radio.

English Version:
Translation: Alexander Dickow
Voices: Kester Lovelace & Leïla Muse

 [] Ambeo + BP4025 + MixPre 3.II
Listening with headphones recommended • Binaural recordings