Facing the glaciers of La Meije, the Lautaret Garden, located 2100 m above sea level, is the highest altitude garden in Europe. A unique conservatory, it showcases the diverse alpine flora of each continent. There, one can see plants from the Alps, the Rockies, the Caucasus, the Himalayas, Japan, the Arctic, the Andes, Patagonia and the mountains of Africa. Since the 19th century, this garden has been a center for botanical research and conservation, where scientists, students and gardeners come to study its remarkable biodiversity and exchange seeds in order to enrich and preserve our collective knowledge of these species.
Photographer Marine Lanier came to Lautaret to produce large format photographs of the garden. Evenings, in the company of the researchers, were enlivened by epic tales of Hannibal, who is said to have used this pass to cross the Alps during his war against Rome. The mingling of these stories and her images creates a phantasmagorical vision of the future. In the light of these ecological challenges, Le Jardin d’Hannibal (Hannibal’s Garden) presents this place as a bastion of resistance in the face of current dangers posed by climate change.
Design Grégoire Pujade-Lauraine
40 pages, 23 x 29 cm
Softcover, Saddle stitch
Second printing, July 2024
Le Jardin d’Hannibal is available in the Caught by the River Bandcamp shop (£22) alongside such titles as Kerry Holbrook and Ruth Klückers’ Gomonna, celebrating the history of seaweed collecting in Cornwall; Magali Duzant’s A Tree Grows in Queens, bringing together trees found in old-growth forests and the urban streetscapes of New York City: and David Simpson’s Courir, opening the photographer’s 30-year archive on Louisiana’s rural Mardi Gras traditions. Browse our full selection of diverse and under-the-radar titles here.