Nocturnal stories on one side, sound fossils on the other, the Darling Foundry is immersed in an atmosphere imbued with mystery. Two exhibitions give either to see material remains or structures under construction, or to hear noises coming from distant depths.
While the art center has just celebrated its twenty years of distribution, the artists Amélie Laurence Fortin and Sandra Volny are offering projects that one might think were designed as a tribute to this former metallurgical factory. Pieces in copper or steel and evocation of the past and the transforming power of time resonate from the large hall to the small gallery.
If the two artists do not ignore the place that hosts them, their works arise from concerns that precede the idea of exhibiting at the Darling Foundry. In the case of Amélie Laurence Fortin, it was “micro-events” of monumental magnitude in her life that she wanted to tell. With Sandra Volny, her quest to capture sounds inaudible “to the bare ear” led her to reveal “the voice of ice”.
Salute to innovation
Tales of a short night by Amélie Laurence Fortin comes in four parts, from an almost imperceptible wall intervention to an imposing veil, suspended and in constant motion. Although not very obvious, the narrative line – or lines, since there is more than one story – encourages the visitor to wander among the different works. The desire to magnify the material, whether it is cut copper with computer motifs ofAxis Mundi or the steel of the modular constructions of monomythis palpable.
The poetry of the Quebec artist living in Poland reflects our relationships of scale and his reflections on exploration, territory and time — his micro-events, experienced during a sea kayaking expedition. At the Foundry Darling, the height of its large room and the light that invades it on sunny days have often given rise to experiences of this nature, where one feels both small and imbued with the power of the place. Like in a cathedral, only more sober.
Where Amélie Laurence Fortin does not get lost, or does not repeat, it is through the commentary that she leaves hovering over the importance of the human hand (or the human spirit) behind ideas of grandeur. What she means by “human and technological innovation” applies as much to the industrial past of the Darling Foundry as to all this work that allows us to move forward, that of yesterday in terracotta or copper, that of today. in polyester or robotics.
Talking sedimentations
Sound Fossils by Sandra Volny also has several components – and it’s not just for the ears. More coherent than the exhibition in the large hall, this one is based on the idea that water is not only a source of sound, but that it conveys a memory capable of accounting for the passage of time.
Humbug? At all. At least, to validate his hypotheses, the artist appealed to science, and in particular to the research of Julien Chaput. Using seismographs, the mathematician and geophysicist probed frozen ground in Antarctica for two years, at different seasons and under varying conditions (storm, calm, etc.). It is on this material that Sandra Volny has built her exhibition.
” [Julien Chaput] discovered that the ice emits a very singular sound, which testifies, through its variations, to the ongoing modifications which are currently intensifying in the soil, due to climate change”, explains the artist in a short email exchange. . “The voice of ice cream”: that could have been the title of the project.
A fossil is a trace, an imprint, a sedimentary deposit. This principle of transfer, the exhibition reflects by multiple examples. A loudspeaker broadcasts Chaput’s samples, which are in fact audible translations, thanks to complex algorithms, of originally imperceptible vibrations.
Exhibition title series, Sound Fossils are not abstract paintings, but thirteen cases of “sedimentation of sound on pigments”. The artist obtained these plates after a long process (four months) where the vibratory waves coming from the white continent were put to the test of water and evaporation. The result is reminiscent of oxidation effects or stains of colored liquid.
With an exercise that is both random and very formal, Sandra Volny reveals the extent to which matter, and therefore nature, undergoes alterations and remains vulnerable in this time of environmental crisis. Without sounding the alarm, it calls for more meditation and makes the scientific laboratory its altar. The work the ferryman, a listening instrument, thus consists of an enormous test tube filled with water in which a hydrophone is immersed. A helmet makes it possible to hear other sound vibrations, those which undergo the impact of our steps and the general atmosphere.