On Sunday, 13 September, (Future) Paradise Gardens, the tenth edition of Biennale Gherdëina, curated by Samuel Leuenberger, will come to a close with a special day dedicated to the landscape—exploring not only its climatic and ecological dimensions, but also its cultural significance and its potential to foster new forms of connection within the community. Visitors are invited to spend the day in Val Gardena, taking the opportunity to revisit the ideas and artworks at the heart of (Future) Paradise Gardens.
The day will begin at 11am at Pilat (an outdoor location of Biennale Gherdëina 10, reachable only on foot by a 40 min. walk from Ortisei center) with a talk featuring landscape architect and Biennale artist Bas Smets and author Vartan Karapetian, moderated by Giovanna Melandri, former Italian Minister of Culture and current President of Human Foundation. The conversation will explore the relationship between landscape, memory, biodiversity, and climate change, bringing artistic practices, landscape architecture, and cultural heritage into dialogue to consider how ecosystems are transforming and how we might imagine, preserve, and care for the places we inhabit.
The discussion will offer an opportunity to further explore the ideas underpinning Smets’ practice and Degrees of Elevation, his installation on view at Biennale Gherdëina in collaboration with Artistic Director Eliane Le Roux. Developed specifically for the Pilat site, the project examines the impact of climate change on the Alpine landscape.
The roundtable will feature the European presentation of The English Park, An Ecology of Memory in Yerevan, published by Armenian Arts Council Editions, with the author Vartan Karapetian in attendance. The book traces the history and cultural heritage of Yerevan’s English Park, bringing together contributions by Norbert Peeters, Aram Pachyan, and Marine Haroyan. The publication has been produced in conjunction with the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, the leading international forum dedicated to biodiversity, which will take place in Yerevan from 19 to 30 October 2026.
The talk will last approximately 90 minutes. The visitors are required to reach the location on foot from Ortisei, with a 40 minutes walk along the trail nr. 15.
At 3pm, visitors are invited to join the final and free guided tour of the Biennale’s exhibition venues in the town of Ortisei. The tour will depart from the Info Point at Sala Trenker and last approximately 90 minutes.
The day will conclude from 5 to 7pm at the (Future) Paradise Gardens installation in Plaza Stetteneck, Ortisei, with a performative action exploring the sharing, regeneration, and continuity of the garden. Landscape architect Eva-Maria Schgaguler will invite visitors to take part in the distribution and adoption of the plants that make up the installation by Gartenwelt Platter, in exchange for a small donation supporting the charitable activities of Vinzenzgemeinschaft within the local community. This symbolic act of sharing and care will give the plants a life beyond the Biennale, extending the garden beyond the duration of the exhibition and transforming the finissage into a moment of continuity, collective care, and participation. In this way, visitors become custodians of the garden’s future, giving tangible expression to the central idea of Biennale Gherdëina 10 and helping to carry it forward beyond the exhibition.
On the occasion of the finissage, Sunday, 13 September 2026, admission to all Biennale Gherdëina exhibition venues will be free of charge. The 3pm guided tour of the exhibition venues in Ortisei will also be free of charge. No registration is required.
Bas Smets (1975, Hasselt, Belgium) lives and works between Brussels and Paris. He is the founder of the landscape architecture studio Bureau Bas Smets and Professor in Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His work ranges from large public parks to historic city centres, from infrastructural landscapes to film sets. He is known for developing new urban ecologies in which vegetation, soil, and water generate microclimates that increase the resilience of the built environment to climate change. Collaborations with researchers and artists are at the core of his practice. Recent projects include the LUMA Parc des Ateliers in Arles, the public spaces around Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, currently under construction, and Building Biospheres for the Belgian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, developed with neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso.
Vartan Karapetian, an art historian and curator, explores the intersections of art, landscape, and memory through archival research, oral histories, and interdisciplinary projects. His recent publications include Haroutiun Galentz. The Form of Colour (Skira), dedicated to the work of the Armenian-Lebanese artist Haroutiun Galentz, and The English Park. An Ecology of Memory in Yerevan (Armenian Arts Council Editions).
Giovanna Melandri is a cultural manager and former Italian Minister of Culture. From 2012 to 2022, she served as President of the Fondazione MAXXI, where she played a key role in strengthening the institution’s international profile. She is the founder and President of Human Foundation, an organisation dedicated to advancing social innovation, impact investing, and sustainable development. Her work lies at the intersection of culture, public policy, and social innovation, with a longstanding commitment to the role of culture as a catalyst for social change.
Eva-Maria Schgaguler is particularly interested in people and their relationship with the cultural and natural landscape, both past and present. In line with the European Landscape Convention, she sees the character of a place as the result of an ongoing dialogue between natural factors and human intervention. After completing her Bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture at the University of Genoa, with a thesis dedicated to the conservation of historic gardens, she joined BplusB in Amsterdam, where she worked on urban and public space projects. She later obtained a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the Edinburgh College of Art, where her thesis focused on the redevelopment of the Hofburg Garden in Bressanone. After completing her master’s degree, she collaborated with Dolar Landscape in Bressanone, working on landscape planning at the municipal scale. From 2010 to 2016, she was part of the Studio Vulkan team in Zürich, contributing to a range of landscape and urban planning projects. Between 2017 and 2019, she worked at Snøhetta Studio Innsbruck as a project manager, overseeing, among other projects, the Swarovski Orchard in Wattens. Since 2016, she has been working as an independent landscape architect with her own practice in Siusi allo Sciliar, developing projects across Italy, Austria and Switzerland. Each project begins with listening to the place and evolves into spaces that combine identity, sustainability and aesthetic quality.
