Jardins barges
The Jardins-Barges (Crazy Garden) project is part of a strategy to activate public space through artistic action, within the Open Air programme led by the city’s Department of Museums. This specific commissioning framework makes it possible to develop a public space project in which landscape design and cultural mediation are closely intertwined, using the canal network as a medium for urban exploration.
Jardins-Barges proposes a journey through the neighbourhoods of Dunkirk by water, fostering encounters between residents and the living environment. The garden on Île Jeanty forms the main anchor point of this approach. Located at the heart of the city, this nearly 9-hectare site is a former port wasteland.
The project is based on an intentionally economical approach, grounded in principles of differentiated management. Its aim is to transform a space previously maintained in an intensive manner by the Port Authority—short lawns and tightly clipped hedges—into an evolving landscape, reshaped each year through varied mowing regimes, hedgerow gardening and the gradual enrichment of meadows. Small thematic gardens, combined with custom-designed furniture, punctuate the site and diversify both uses and atmospheres.
Over a six-year period, Wagon Landscaping worked alongside the City of Dunkirk and its technical services to guide the transformation of this site. It has become at once a place for community gardening, a venue for cultural events—including screenings and monumental installations such as those by Russian artist Nikolai Polissky—and a space for observing urban biodiversity. Integrated into the metropolitan green network, Jardins-Barges asserts the role of landscape as a connector between ecology, culture and everyday uses.