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It is a unique experience that we have had as young French people welcomed into the prestigious Villa Medici in Rome. The opportunity for high school students with a professional baccalaureate, future landscapers in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, to present their work.
It is an agitation to which the Villa Medici is not necessarily accustomed. For four days, the 300 students of the vocational high school in the south-east of France are welcomed in residence. Rather accustomed to receiving artists and researchers, for the past two years, the French Academy in Rome (Italy) has opened its doors to young people whose educational background has not always been valued and who are unaccustomed to this kind of place. .
500 students benefited from this program this year
On the program, a visit to Rome of course, but first of all to the gardens of the Villa, where the sculptures sit enthroned behind each bush. But far from a simple school trip, this residence is a culmination for these students. Because all of them have developed works related to their training. Four students from the Saint-Rémy-de-Provence agricultural high school (Bouches-du-Rhône), have created what they call a biodiversity tower of Babel. A sculpture, designed as a shelter for insects, which they must present on stage in a few days.
In total this year, 500 students were able to take advantage of this program, which should continue with other high schools in other regions of France, each year until 2025.