Friction
Description of the exhibition
2025–2026
Sound installation
Steel, motor and electrical components, synthesizer, mixer, speakers
70 cm x 70 cm x 250 cm
In winter, Quebec's landscape is transformed by the effects of bitter cold, which compresses the air, stiffens surfaces, and demands constant endurance from our bodies. The ground cracks, structures respond to the cold, and the pressure of the climate shapes both the landscape and our movements. Amélie Laurence Fortin's work is part of this experience of tension and resistance: chains slide and rub tirelessly against the surface of a metal monolith, engaging us in a sensitive confrontation with perpetual motion. Contrasting the mechanical movement of shiny chains against the immobile mass of a steel block, the installation deploys a live polyphonic audio composition, generating sounds that transform and change throughout the exhibition.
Although the metal block may resemble a monument, the mechanism that activates it and the friction between the metals that evoke notions of constraint, tension, and duration. This pressure is applied not only to the installation’s materials, but also to our bodies. The frequencies and noises emitted by the moving chains engage our senses in multiple ways, transforming our relationship with the object and the space.
Thus, Friction calls for a form of psychological and physical endurance—the kind of endurance that Fortin observes in both Canada and Poland, between which she divides her life and artistic activity. “My work is often influenced by territory, and currently by the political tension of borders.” In this way, Fortin’s sculptural, kinetic, and sonic work functions as a radical performative object, allowing for a reflection on matter, territory, and time: those experienced and those evoked.
Commissioning and production of Avatar.
Co-presentation of Avatar and Manif d'art in collaboration with Chiguer Art contemporain.
The artist would like to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Avatar, centre en arts sonore et électronique, Manif d’Art, Myriam Lambert, Didier Morelli, Marie-Christine Landry, Jean-François Lahos, Louis-Robert Bouchard, Vincent Hinse, Jean-Philippe Rioux-Blanchette, Klaudiusz Ślusarczyk, and Wojciech Sikora (initial research—creation and engineering).
Avatar would like to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the cultural development agreement between the Government of Quebec and the City of Quebec.
