Amélie Laurence Fortin is currently in residence at Avatar, working on her installation Friction. Friction will be presented as part of Manif d’art 12, at galerie Chiguer art contemporain, from February 28 to April 12, 2026. Marked by the experience of the territories in which the artist lives, the sculptural, kinetic and sound work echoes current geopolitical tensions.
In winter, Quebec’s territory is transformed by an arid cold that compresses the air, stiffens surfaces and imposes constant endurance on our bodies. The ground creaks, structures respond to the cold, and the pressure of the climate shapes both the landscape and our gestures. Amélie Laurence Fortin’s work is part of this experience of tension and resistance: a set of chains tirelessly slide and rub the surface of a metal monolith, engaging us in a sensitive confrontation with a perpetual movement that persists. Opposing the mechanical movement of shiny chains to the immobile mass of a steel block, the installation deploys a polyphonic sound composition played live which, through its movements, generates sounds that transform and change over the course of the exhibition.
While the metal block may recall a monument, it is the mechanism that activates it and the friction between the metals that evoke notions of constraint, tension and duration. This pressure applies not only to the materials in the installation, but also to our bodies. The frequencies and noises emitted by the chains’ movements engage our senses in multiple ways, transforming our relationship to the object and space. In this way, Friction demands a certain psychological and physical stamina: the same stamina the artist observes in Canada as well as in Poland, where she shares her artistic life. “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 that enables reflection on matter, territory and time: those experienced and those evoked.
Friction was commissioned by Avatar.
The artist would like to thank: Le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Jean-François Lahos, Louis-Robert Bouchard, Klaudiusz Ślusarczyk and Wojciech Sikora.