Photo: © Jean-François Savaria
Montréal’s Gardens of Light Returns with a Reimagined Indigenous Peoples Garden
Autumn evenings have arrived in Montréal, and the city’s Jardin botanique is shining a little brighter.
Now underway through November 1, Gardens of Light has returned for its 14th edition, transforming three of the botanical garden’s cultural spaces into illuminated worlds of storytelling through colour and sound. The after-dark experience is a fall tradition in Montréal, inviting visitors to see familiar landscapes from a new perspective. This year, one garden in particular is blossoming: Resonance, a completely reimagined immersive circuit in the Indigenous Peoples Garden, created to celebrate the garden’s 25th anniversary.
Developed through a collaborative co-design process, Resonance brings together the creative voices of Anne Lagacé, Soleil Launière, and Gonzalo Soldi, among others, with contributions from Indigenous artists Eruoma Awashish, Béatrice Deer, Marie-Andrée Gill, Jacques Newashish, Joseph Sarenhes, and Étienne Thibeault. The result is an experience built around connection—to one another, to the land, and to generations past and future.
Across five interconnected scenes, visitors encounter stories of tradition, told through light, sound, and movement. Voices respond to one another while illuminated patterns appear across the landscape, involving all of your senses in the experience. The organizers describe it as a living tapestry where people, lands and generations intersect.
The new experience fits within this year’s broader Gardens of Light theme, which looks to the rhythms of the natural world for inspiration. The movement of water, the sound of wind, the changing seasons, and the pulse of life become threads connecting three distinct illuminated environments, each offering its own perspective on nature, time, and our relationship with the land.
It begins in the Japanese Garden, a quiet, contemplative space inspired by yūgen, a Japanese aesthetic associated with the world’s subtle, mysterious beauty. The installation combines a monumental projection with carefully designed landscape lighting, inviting viewers to slow down and observe the garden’s pine grove, noticing details and natural beauty that might be overlooked during the day.
From there, Resonance becomes the centrepiece of the evening before visitors make their way to the Chinese Garden for a vibrant finale. Here, Gardens of Light draws inspiration from the Shan Hai Jing, or Classic of Mountains and Seas, an ancient text that has influenced Chinese mythology and culture for centuries. Lanterns light up legendary creatures and symbolic landscapes, while visuals and sound make the experience even more immersive.
The three gardens offer very different experiences, but they each work together to move visitors through contemplative quiet, heartfelt connection, and childlike wonder at the mythology throughout. The invitation to look more closely at nature is especially fitting at the Jardin botanique, part of Espace pour la vie, Montréal’s network of natural-science institutions. Along with the Biodôme, Biosphère, Insectarium, and Planétarium, the organization works to protect biodiversity and encourage conversations about the environment and our relationship with it.
Gardens of Light offers a particularly magical way to experience those ideas. In time with the crisp evenings and earlier sunsets of autumn, the event encourages visitors to embrace the season—to wander outside, slow their pace, and experience the botanical garden after dark.
Food and beverage options are available on site, making the illuminated walk an easy addition to an autumn evening in Montréal. Admission also includes access to the Jardin botanique throughout the same day, allowing visitors to experience its landscapes in daylight before discovering how dramatically they transform once the lights come on.
With Gardens of Light continuing through November 1, there is still time to experience one of Montréal’s most atmospheric fall traditions. For its 14th year, the event is offering new ways to see—and connect with—the world around us.
Source: Espace pour la vie Montréal
