![]() In the middle of the gallery space I had a reverse cluster of massive white mountains hanging from the ceiling. In the exhibition, I had tags describing the different scientific aspects and research about these plants in this way that they looked exactly like they do in herbarium collections. I met a lot of different people to make this project, including biologists, and I visited different herbariums to trace certain plants geographically. So there’s something a little bit like entering a secret knowledge society, there is a magic and a hidden aspect about it all that was kind of very interesting. Like, they need to know you a little bit more to be sure that you have good intentions with these plants. The people who know don’t really want to tell you where they are found. And it took me two or three years to gather all of them because it’s a kind of secret knowledge… finding them is a challenge. These plants were picked in the territory of Quebec province and all of them were poisonous to different levels. These were real plants that were dried and displayed in the Victorian herbarium fashion. So that was the idea behind the project.Īnd the way it was organised in the space was you had some drawings of plants? And the human desire to explore all these wild territories without knowing them can be sort of dangerous if you don’t know how to prepare yourself, even if it’s very tempting. Like some plants are amazingly beautiful, but they can kill you. My experience made me realise that this magnificent, sublime landscape is also very deadly. It was an installation that revolved around the relation between life and death in the context of exploring wild territories nature that is not colonised by humans. ![]() JULIA CARON: When did you first present Le paysage miraculeux?ĪMELIE LAURENCE FORTIN: I presented Le paysage miraculeux in 2014 in an artist-run centre in Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada named Sporobole. ![]() But before we get there, we have to go back to the beginning, to the description of the exhibition that was my introduction to Amélie Laurence, Le paysage miraculeux. We sat together on the red couch of the sound studio to talk about Yarn of a Short Night, her last exhibition at Fonderie Darling in Montreal. What to edit? Which were the most compelling or evocative details of her art? Brevity is not my strong suit, and if I have the chance to listen to an incredible natural storyteller like Amélie Laurence, it’ll be a very difficult task!įor the conversation today, we met while Fortin, who is now partially based in Warsaw, was in residence at the Avatar sound centre in Quebec City. We spoke on the phone at length, which gave me, an arts reporter for a daily current affairs radio programme, an exceptional challenge. Ten years ago we met by phone, after I’d seen a press release by Sporobole (then, an artist-run centre focused on installation-based practices in Sherbrooke, QC) featuring an exhibit by the Quebecois artist. That was my first impression of the artist as I listened to her describe the different ways in which plants might poison you or end your life. Amélie Laurence Fortin is a hard woman to kill.
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