An open-air sculptural journey: the Ar Milin' park and the streets of Châteaubourg transform into a living gallery, blending material, color, and movement.
An open-air sculptural journey: the Ar Milin' park and the streets of Châteaubourg transform into a living gallery, blending material, color, and movement.
Jardin des Arts celebrates a new edition and returns to its spring quarters in the heart of the city and in the Ar Milin' park.
For 24 years, the idea has remained the same: to invite monumental sculpture to engage in dialogue with nature and the landscape. From May to September, paths, lawns, and streets are adorned with works that seek the gaze and invite strolling, wandering, and sometimes astonishment (yes, sometimes we stop and look differently).
For this edition, five artists present around fifteen proposals, including totemic sculptures, interactive installations, organic structures, and hybrid works.
The names: Marianne Cardon & Aurélien Dupuis (Collectif The Grouples), Sébastien Dufeu, Guillaume Garrié, Catherine Thiry, and Marie Toulotte.
Each opens a different door: humor and deviation, giant madeleines, silent presences, the raw energy of bronze, or installations that play with light and landscape.
Branchée, created by Marianne Cardon and Aurélien Dupuis, is a kind of giant mobile hanging between two trees.
It is a hybrid totem, organic in shape and manufactured on the surface. Designed to reflect light and movement, it is made of dried and treated oak branches, polymer resin, and 10x10 mm mirror tiles.
The announced dimensions give it a beautiful presence: 550 x 250 x 250 cm, and the weight is around 65 to 70 kg. The installation is held up by protective straps, steel cables, and swivels, all details that remind us that monumental art can also be ingenious.
Sébastien Dufeu extends his work around the madeleine, here on a surprising scale. We find Gerridé, inspired by the Gerridae, those insects capable of gliding on water: a transformed madeleine, equipped with long, thin legs made of aluminum tubes, emerging near the water body of Ar Milin'.
The overall dimensions of the installation reveal its sculptural ambition: 390 x 390 x 300 cm for the whole, while the shape of the madeleine itself measures 150 x 100 x 80 cm.
Three installations by the artist also punctuate the streets of the city, bringing this blend of the intimate and the monumental.
Guillaume Garrié presents The Three Birds, a trio of vertical sculptures, three different heights arranged in a triangle, which encourage visitor circulation and a change of perspective. The surfaces, black and matte for the bodies, lighter for the heads, create a contrast that structures the reading of the forms.
The materials mentioned: mineral filler and acrylic binder, dimensions: 5 x 4 x 3 m, announced weight around 800 kg. The effect, it is said, is not narrative but perceptual: presences that assert themselves quietly.
Catherine Thiry works with earth and bronze with raw and expressive energy. Three sculptures of her own are installed in the park and in the city, under the titles "Aequanimus," "Morphosis," and "Wanted."
Morphosis is presented with some technical characteristics: height 200 cm (plus corten steel base), composite material of iron (polyester + iron powder), and a weight close to 500 kg. Her sculpture reflects a gesture that borrows from painting; one can feel the hand shaping the material.
Marie Toulotte presents Taiyô (which means "sun" in Japanese), an installation made up of rotating cubes, each face displaying a different color.
The public is invited to take action: modify the composition, change the panorama, recompose the horizon. The structure combines a larch frame with 679 locust cubes and rolled steel bars.
Dimensions: L 2.80 m, h 2.90 m. An interactive, poetic work that plays with light like a musical score.
Art education has been at the heart of the project for a long time. An educational component, conducted since 2005, allows students in the area to participate in visual arts workshops led by professional artists.
The experience began with a primary class from Servon-sur-Vilaine and has expanded to six schools. For three years, students have participated in over 50 hours of workshops, exploring land art, mosaic, ceramics, textiles, and painting. More than 2,000 children have been supported over the past 21 years, resulting in many small works exhibited alongside established artists.
The exhibition is supported by the association Les Entrepreneurs Mécènes, created to bring together local businesses around culture. Since its inception, the association has gathered companies and established this event in the city's landscape. Sponsorship is presented as a tool for attractiveness that engages the community and businesses in a shared adventure, serving artists and the public.
Today, the collective effort is also reflected in the presence of artworks in the streets of Châteaubourg and in the idea of a "City of Sculptors."
Key dates to remember: Jardin des Arts takes place from May 1 to September 15, 2026.
Entry is free and open every day, with late-night hours until midnight. The Ar Milin' park is located at 30 rue de Paris in Châteaubourg.
For information or contacts: contact@lesentrepreneursmecenes.fr. Take your time, keep an eye out, and enjoy the journey (and maybe a meal facing the Vilaine, if the mood strikes you).
Sponsorship: financial support, a partnership or commitment logic of private actors in favor of a cultural project, often motivated by the desire to make art accessible.
Interactive installation: a work designed for the public to interact with, pivot, touch, move, and thus modify the image or perception of the work.
Jardin des Arts has long played this role of a bridge between contemporary creation and the local landscape. Here, art is not confined to museums: it invites itself onto paths, into streets, and near water.
Whether you are an art lover, a curious Sunday visitor, or looking for a different stroll, the route offers encounters that are sometimes funny, sometimes serious, often moving. Slow down, look around, and let yourself be touched by the energy of the works.
Author Loïc on 27 October 2025
Art and Culture : Museums
Author Audrey on 28 July 2021
Art and Culture : Museums