The nature as a bridge connecting cultures: this is the main purpose of Radicepura Garden Festival, the horticultural exhibition running in 2017 in Catania.
The principal goal of this festival is to give a direct answer to the pressing request of urban sustainability. It’s necessary change our cities and our lifestyle and to ensure a real transformation businesses, landscapers and architects should establish an international partnership. This is the reason behind the strong and fruitful collaboration between Piante Faro, Radicepura Garden Festival and Arab World Institute that led to the Jardins d’Orient exhibition, planned by the garden designer Michel Péna with the partnership of the Sicilian horticultural company Piante Faro, that once again represents the excellence of Sicily.
This natural artistic installation was opened until September 2016 at the Arab World Institute (AWI) in Paris and it stood for a travel in the history of the thousand-year old art of gardens that connects East and West by centuries. The ephemeral gardens are built using the greenery of Piante Faro and they followed a rich playful-sensory itinerary showing the cultural, graphic, social, aesthetic, environmental aspects of nature. This exhibition recalled the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the patio of Alhambra showing the history of Oriental gardens through roses, oranges, palms and jasmines. By putting the emphasis on gardening and all of the components that go with it, the Arab-Islamic gardens can inspire with its features the building of sustainable cities. The care in saving biodiversity and environment of Piante Faro is connected with the research activities of AWI organization, located in a building constructed by Jean Nouvel which symbolizes as the union between Arab and Western cultures. This is once again the main purpose of Jardins d’Orient exhibition, as implied in cooperation and link between Sicily, France and Arabic Countries.