La ou cueillir la chute

Là où cueillir la chute , is a research project that brings together my new drawings of raw clay, singing bowls, breaths and other ceramics with music recordings, on a vinyl disc, of four of my collaborators, accomplished artists from global cultures, disciplines, who are performers and musicians: Ziya Tabassian, percussionist, Olivier Girouard electroacoustician and composer, Peter Morin artist and curator of the Tahltan First Nation and Navid Navab multidisciplinary artist and composer.
This project is subsidized by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

champ de maïs, corn field

endroit exact des cueillettes, exact place of harvesting

divine boue, glorious mud

The record will released in the summer 2022

From the beginning

I use clay as the basic material for my work. This material, which is found everywhere on the earth's crust, fascinates me. It carries the history of the world. This is the conclusion I have reached since I started collecting clay in nature and on the land. Each one has its own specificities that tell the story of the territory and the communities that inhabit it. This recording project is the first time I have sourced clay in the greater Montreal area where I live. This happened with the precious help of Mr. Victor Girouard, an agronomist, we accompanied him to one of his family's lands in Saint-Hyacinthe. This is where we gathered the clay that is the basis of this whole project. I had no idea how much this clay would teach about these territories.

The road ahead

The Montreal Plain was the main clay sedimentation basin of the Champlain Sea, whose presence dates back 10,000 years. This clay is at the root of the region's specificities and the richness it bequeaths to us. Today, these lands are considered among the best agricultural lands in Quebec. It is here that I discovered a rich, easy-to-handle clay with which I drew and threw. It is grey in nature and once fired becomes a beautiful orange. Better still, this clay resonates and sings. This, it seemed to me, was all that was needed to launch our collective project of clay, sound and music.

Gathered around singing bowls, clay drawings, earth sculptures and my sound recordings, all that remained was to imagine a continuation. The sudden stop due to the pandemic turned the project on its head and slowed down our momentum. Far from each other, unable to meet together, we had to invent a place where we could bring this project to life differently. I have always considered my collaborations as much as artistic achievements as human encounters. They have essentially taught me the importance of listening and breathing. It is from this place, listening, as abstract as it may seem, and where it is more important than anything else to be attentive to the other that "Là où cueillir la chute" has taken up residence in the generosity of the heart, of the breath and of the earth, in the sharing of stories. Thank you Olivier, Peter, Navid and Ziya for being here.