Bouquets of ferns, angelica blossoms and harebells sway gently alongside slender violets, delicate roses and strawberries with their jagged leaves. This flowerbed of wonders emerges before our eyes in black and white and on paper. The beauty of the form of each plant surprises the visitor, while the changing lights and a soundtrack create the illusion of a garden without seasons, quivering in a light breeze.
These drawings are from prints in an 18th-century botanical encyclopaedia. Benoît Faivre and Tommy Laszlo staged the drawings by copying and cutting them out, using their simple and meticulous technique for ‘augmenting’ paper. This fragile, living and ephemeral tableau is an invitation to contemplate, to marvel at nature and at the highly delicate work of a scientist from the Age of Enlightenment.
Benoît Faivre and Tommy Laszlo discovered various volumes of L’Histoire du Règne Végétal [History of the Plant Kingdom] by Pierre-Joseph Buc’hoz, a lawyer, doctor and botanist from Lorraine, in the archives of the city of Metz. They were won over by the delicate prints in this unique encyclopaedia, containing thousands of plants. The author had a gigantic ambition: to present ‘all the plants growing on the earth’s surface’! The first volume appeared in 1772, but the project was never completed. These fragile publications were destined to remain in storage, with only a digital format available to the public. The artists wanted to make this graphic heritage accessible by creating a ‘paper garden’. The end result allows us to admire the whole book, in a type of ‘blown-up’ three-dimensional format. All the pages, and each side of every page are gathered together like a large bouquet.
The Paper Garden installation originated from the research carried out by Benoît Faivre and Tommy Laszlo on ways to ‘augment’ paper documents. Their method, developed in 2014, consists in cutting out a print and ‘lifting’ it vertically, without touching the original, of course. By accumulating prints, they create a ‘forest’ of pages on which we can still read the captions indicating the name of the species. The whole display is magnified by a changing light reminiscent of the successive positions of the sun, thanks to lamps fitted to a mobile device. The sounds of nature are recreated from rustling paper and are broadcast by small mobile loudspeakers inside the tables. This backdrop of sound and light transfigures the motionless paper. The changing shadows and insect noises turn this black and white garden into a haven of peace, a condensed version of living nature. It feels so real that like certain spectators, you will want to explore it barefoot!
“The Jardin de papier exhibition offers a real breath of fresh air”
Simon Guerin, Le Républicain Lorrain, 3 June 2026
“You would think you were in a real garden.”
Marie Chappaz, Moselle TV, May 2026
“A magical exhibition that delights young and old alike!”
Pauline, Planète Metz, 20 May 2026
“A marriage of heritage, biodiversity and culture.”
Mirabelle TV, 23 September 2014
Design and direction: Benoît Faivre and Tommy Laszlo
Soundtrack: Gabriel Fabing and Benoît Faivre
Lighting and devices: David Gallaire
Coproduction:
City of Metz:
Cultural Heritage department
Archive department
Library and Media Library department
The company La Bande Passante is supported under agreement by the Departmental Council of Moselle and the City of Metz, and supported by the DRAC Grand Est and the Grand Est Region.
Shared cutting
From the very first stage, in September 2014 at the Cloître des Récollets, a dozen people helped the two artists cut out the plants with precision knives. In 2019, at the L’Autre Lieu library in Le Rheu, students from the Théodore Monod horticultural high school, guided by their teacher Jean-Marc Helleux, took part in cutting out the prints.
Living plants
At the Basilica of Saint-Vincent in Metz, in 2026, real plants lent by the Metz Botanical Garden surrounded the paper tables, and 24 cut-out butterflies marked the hours of the day.
Musical encounters
In 2021, at the Église Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains (Cité musicale-Metz), clarinettists Marina Moth and Florent Charpentier played impromptus in the garden. On 21 June 2026, at Saint-Vincent, two concerts by Agathe Zenier and Philippe Delacour brought together 220 people.
Benoît Faivre: +33 (0)6 69 42 59 56 · diffusion@ciebandepassante.fr