Le Jardin de
résistance sur le tiers-lieu des Marquisats

Between lake and mountain, Emmanuel Louisgrand and ESAAA students maintain an experimental and resilient garden. In 2024, local species and sun-loving plants will coexist there, for the world after. A banana tree, a prickly pear, kiwis and bougainvillea sit alongside totemic sculptures, vines and rose bushes.
On the Marquisats site, a third-place project was launched in 2018 and strengthens the links between the different actors on site. Imagined as a place of collaboration where synergies on a local and territorial scale converge, the project aims to become a hub of creative resources and emblematic events for young people, in the fields of art and design. By supporting the emergence of new imaginations, practices and cultures, it is a demonstrator of ecological and societal transitions.

The Marquisats Park, between prospecting and transitional terrain
Surrounding the buildings of ESAAA, Brise-Glace and the IDEIS residence, the Marquisats park is one of the areas where new forms are invented and converge: thanks to it, the third place is gradually becoming part of in a network of actors working both on the dynamism of the territory and on the ecological and societal transition. It proposes to renew our relationships with living things through a creative workshop with plants, urban agriculture projects, shared gardens, an educational garden, a nourishing forest to invent…

The Marquisates experimental garden – making art differently
Between ornamental space, vegetable garden and sculpture park, the Garden of Resistance that Emmanuel Louisgrand, artist and teacher at ESAAA built over time with students, is transformed with small touches. They experimented with growing vines, planting rose bushes and tulip bulbs, and created a water garden area with rainwater harvesting.

To admire the view of the lake from the garden or to relax above the tennis courts, the students installed several benches that they built during a workshop with professional designers.

Some proposals from students taking their DNA and DNSEP diplomas in 2023 will also punctuate this space.

The shared garden of the third place
The Marquisats shared garden was initiated in April 2020 by staff members, residents and volunteers from the three structures supporting the third-place project: ESAAA, Le Brise-Glace and the IDEIS des Marquisats residence.

Garden artist, born in 1969 in France, Emmanuel Louisgrand has been interested since his beginnings in public space, the garden and the city in transition. After a post-diploma in “art and design, landscapes and urban spaces” in 1993 in Rennes, he moved to Saint-Étienne where he developed his artistic research around abandoned spaces. Convinced by its potential for experimentation and exhibition, the artist uses the ESAAA garden as an educational tool and conducts research and shaping of space and life with his students, while questioning himself on the nature/culture relationship.