No symposium or grand speech. To celebrate 50 years of scientific action on the territory, the CNRS chose a walk through a shared garden on the Jean-Zay campus, named “Vert-tiges”, created in 2018 to improve quality of life at work. Researchers, administrative staff, and artists come together for a somewhat special event: a meeting with landscape architect and botanist Gilles Clément, one of the designers of Parc André-Citroën.
Although the day’s wind somewhat disrupted the event, it didn’t stop Gilles Clément from sowing the seeds of his philosophy of the “moving garden”: “We need to stop with quick and standardized interventions. We can’t just say: here’s the management plan, you need to do this or that. The people intervening must know the plants, but also the animals and insects linked to this system. From there, they can make the right decisions.”
Regarding the garden as a collective work, he adds: “We are constantly in cosignature: the garden is not just the result of what we decide. There are also the plants, animals, all living things that invent with us.” A philosophy that echoes the spirit of this celebration, “We wanted to show that research is not just laboratories and scientific publications, it is also a community of people,” explains Clotilde Roussel, head of cultural affairs at CAES, the CNRS’ social action committee.
Context: CNRS is celebrating 50 years of scientific action through a special event in a shared garden designed to enhance the quality of life at work.
Fact Check: Gilles Clément, a landscape architect and botanist, shared his philosophy of the “moving garden” during the event.
