Petite Loire by Mathieu Lehanneur

Petite Loire is a Liquid Marble series installation by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur for International Gardens Festival at Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire Centre D’Arts et 2 de Nature, France.

The installation examines the ideal combination of marble, water and light. The designer wanted to achieve visual effect of a the water surface, gently ruffled by the wind, to freeze the moment that usually disappears into vanity.

I wanted to address the garden with water as my muse. The water whose presence we sense even before we first catch sight of it below the Château, flowing uninterrupted to the sea. Some say the Loire is France’s last wild river; it shapes and nourishes the landscapes, it passes through without ever pausing along the way. Petite Loire is a freeze-frame, the river’s perpetual movement caught in a frozen, fossilized moment. A few dozen meters above the river’s natural level, Petite Loire cuts cleanly through the garden’s surface, delving into the soil to reveal a fluvial relief, both vertiginous and practicable, in green marble. I hope that, when passing the Chateau gates, the visitor will experience something that comes close to a magic portal, to a forbidden place in so many fairytales. Everything is liquid in this space, evanescent, enlightened, and yet it is executed in a material that is the one of the most solid imaginable. – Mathieu Lehanneur

See more after the jump:

Work: Petite Loire from Liquid Marble series
Place: Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire Centre D’Arts et Nature 41150 Chaumont-sur-Loire (Less than 200 km south of Paris)
Date: from May 5 to November 2, 2016
Dimensions: 7,5 x 2,5 m
Material: Polished green marble, carved in a 3D software digital machine
Made by: MCM – Mármores Centrais do Minho