Nils-Udo, a major artist of our time, who introduced nature to the centre of the artistic scene and François Méchain, known for his subtle plant architecture, will present, from 2 April, unusual installations in the park of the Castle of Chaumont-sur-Loire, strong poetic interrogations of the threats that hang over our natural environment. «Gulliver’s forest» by Nils-Udo, a work that plays on the infinitely large and the infinitely small, as well as «L’arbre aux couteaux» and «L’arbre aux échelles» by François Méchain are metaphors for the splendour and damage to our forest. With «Pittoresque» Dimitri Xenakis and Maro Avrabou have designed a series of framed, see-through paintings for the park, which show the Castle through out-of-scale images of flowers. Erik Samakh, with his “fireflies” which magically poetise nights at Chaumont and his work on the sounds of the Loire produced for the 2009 Festival, continues to communicate with the landscape like Rainer Gross and Victoria Klotz.

Following on from works by Gursky and Alex MacLean, the castle gallery will host photographs by Nils-Udo and Rodney Graham, whilst the new Stable Gallery will host images by Jacqueline Salmon in “La racine des legumes”. The Domaine will also host, in the Donkey Farm, photographs by Jean-Louis Elzeard (“Ce printemps, le printemps encore réinventera les prés” and “Reconnaissance de la rivière”) and Guillaume Viaud.

To echo the theme of the Garden Festival, which, this year, focuses on colour, in the Fenil Gallery, Daniel Walravens will present “De vert en vert”, a strict variation of approximately fifty paintings which explore all the potential colours of green, whilst Deidi von Schaewen will show the sumptuous polychromy of her “Sacred Trees” and Luzia Simons will show her “Scannogrammes” of giant tulips in the new area “the Bee Barn”. The painter, Christophe Cuzin, has been asked to compose a garden for the Festival.

Finally, it should be noted that until 2011, the Castle will host, in an area of approximately of 600 square metres, work by Jannis Kounellis, a key figure of Arte Povera, in a framework of an exceptional order by the Centre Region for the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire.