Establishing a Bridge between History and Modernity, and a Dialogue between Conservation, Tradition, and Innovation in Gardens

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. The deadline to submit proposals electronically is Monday, October 27, 2025, at 17:00 EST.

Hermine Demaël + Stephen Zimmerer, "Peek-a-Boo" (detail), 2025.
Photo credit: Martin Bond

2026 Theme – Mapping Sensitivity

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. 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.

In the foreground: Patrick Bérubé, "Back / Ground", 2025. To the right: ONOMIAU, "Les huit collines", 2022-2025.
Photo credit: Jean-Christophe Lemay

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.

Michael Hyttel Thorø, "Scars of Conflict", 2025.
Photo credit: Jean-Christophe Lemay

Overview

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.

Deadline to Submit Proposals

Monday, October 27, 2025, at 17:00 EST.

Submission guidelines and registration details are available on its official website.

International Garden Festival

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.