The creation of this imaginary forest was inspired by Katherine Quénot’s book “Le vrai visage des fées” and Georges Didi-Huberman’s “Survivance des lucioles”.

(Création 2014)

Using the graffiti/stencil technique, Sylvie Da Costa prints her “Victory Garden Game” on the ground. In other words, about sixty multicoloured squares, arranged in the form of a spiral, designed with Hélène Durosini, a visual artist. This creation is a nod to the “Victory Garden Game”, a call to the population to invest public space by gardening, to avoid famine after the war. It proposes gardening acts throughout the four seasons, in an “easy to read and understand” method, so that it is accessible to as many people as possible. This original creation (registered game) questions art in the public space, as a playful educational tool, by learning to read, count and garden in harmony with nature. Once the game on the ground has been created, a game is organised with the participants, dice in hand. Sylvie Da Costa is going to distribute her “Victory Garden Game” as a collaborative performance, as the feedback from these first projects has been positive. A “board game” version is currently being designed.

The In Situ Art Festival invites Sylvie Da Costa to perform her “Victory Garden Game”. She creates with her team “Mala 800 Zoo” her environmental game in situ this month of July. in situ art festival

For this second season of her environmental art project “Mala 800 Zoo”, Sylvie Da Costa is creating her orchard of trellised fruit trees. In order to learn this ancient technique, which is little mastered today, she collaborated with the King’s vegetable garden in Versailles, where she was trained in this technique. She organised this orchard like a labyrinth, composed of different varieties of apple trees, pear trees, a peach tree, an apricot tree, vines, small fruits, flowering meadows and pumpkins. She invited her friends Wagon Landscaping to collaborate on constructions (labyrinth frames, wooden decking and seating) to emphasise her desire to turn this former wasteland of the city into a new convivial space, where one can sit, chat or even practice picking. This new public garden of the city around the nourishing nature could be made thanks to the collaboration of its various partners (local and financial) and especially the positive energy of the inhabitants of the city. It will continue in the autumn of 2015 with a new programme offered to the inhabitants.
Photo credits: Marie Sanyas and Sylvie Da Costa.

For the third season of her environmental art project “Mala 800 Zoo”, Sylvie Da Costa is continuing this new urban orchard open to all in the Maladrerie housing estate in Aubervilliers. She is carrying out a new programme based on the theme of nourishing nature by continuing her various collaborations. Thanks to all her partners and inhabitants of the housing estate, Sylvie Da Costa continues to propose creations and meetings to share her love of art and nature through this new convivial space, in which one can always sit down, discuss or even practice picking. Following this beautiful season shared in the heart of the “Verger Mala 800 Zoo”, the artist wishes to propose a new edition for this year 2017. Photo credits: Marie Sanyas and Sylvie Da Costa.