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Remurmurer la terre: tribute to Yvon Forget, exhibition project as part of the Triennale Banlieue! interrègnes The work is shown in two different locations: La maison des arts de Laval, Salle Alfred Pellan and the grounds of the Théâtre du bout de l'île at the Chapelle St-Mathieu, Île Jésus. July 31 - October 30, 2022. This project is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. Marie Perrault is principal curator of this show The Fabrique culturelle has shot a video on the triennial. It presents the work of some of the artists with whom I exhibit and my own. Marie Perrault is the curator of this triennial ​ Since 2011 I have been collecting clays in the wild with which I draw, shape and throw. In 2019 I started to pick some where I live, in the great plain of Montreal along the St. Lawrence river lowlands mainly in Saint-Hyacinthe and Sainte-Rosalie. The Montreal plain is the main clay sedimentation basin of the Champlain Sea 10,000 years ago. This high quality clay tells the story of our territory and our history. In the spring, when I opened the bucket in which clay collected from a farm in Saint-Hyacinthe was placed, I discovered green twigs, well alive, on which fine droplets of water clung. I was astonished, especially since no light stimulates the growth of this delicate vegetation in a bucket filled with clay. It is this surprising discovery that prompts me to deepen the links between my work with clay and agriculture and to work with a farmer for the triennial. This summer, I met Mr. Luc Forget, farmer, who confirmed the presence of clay on his land and agreed to work with me. During our first meeting, Luc Forget gave me a book of the memories of his father Yvon, who died in 2019. In his words, it was to allow me to better understand his origins and the importance of safeguarding farmland. The Forget family is a root family that has been living on Île Jésus for seven generations. Yvon Forget fought all his life for the protection of the agricultural land of Laval. In his eyes, land is a family heritage to be protected and bequeathed to his children. In the middle of the 20th century, he also resisted the temptation to give up his land against tempting offers from German companies wishing to store potentially dangerous residues of chemical factories there. In order to protect arable land from speculation, he also met the then premier of Quebec, Maurice Duplessis, and laid the foundations for what would become the law on the protection of agricultural land. Today his son Luc, provides me with the clay from his land to make a work in tribute to his father. Yvon Forget was a pioneer who worked to ensure the handover between the generations. This is the reason behind my choice to make network channels like mycorrhizae which ensure through the symbiotic association between mushrooms and the roots of plants the transfer of nutrients essential for soil fertility and good harvests. I notice that from landscapes, territories, communities, works carried out, the gathering of clay allows me to probe the incredible and rich multiplicity of a world whose tangled ramifications mutually nourish each other. Through careful observation and active listening, my work engages me in a dialogue with people and with nature. And let me hope that it tends also to the passing of a story. ​ Vous pouvez aussi lire en version PDF, le livre Mémoires de Yvon Forget , écrit par Sylvie Lafleur, sa belle-fille. Filmé le 22 juillet 2022 sur le terrain de la chapelle Saint-Mathieu, au théâtre du bout de l'île Jésus. Le blé, le soya et le maïs poussent bien. ​ 1/1 Continuation of the installation exhibited in the Alfred Pellan gallery of the Maison des arts de Laval. Seven flower-plates, seven balls of raw clay and a sheaf of wheat picked on the Forget's land. Carnet de bord, 27 juillet 2022 This installation teaches me a lot about the qualities of low-fired clay. The canals stay moist and therefore have helped the plants to... Carnet de bord, 22 juillet 2022 Grass, small yellow flowers (birdsfoot trefoil), clover, plantain now surround the clay channels. I assume that this vegetation keeps the... Carnet de bord, 12-15 juillet From sketch to work. Carnet de bord, 4 juillet 2022 Life settles in and adapts to time . Carnet de bord, 28 juin 2022 The wheat grows well. Carnet de bord, 20 juin 2022 The installation is slowly coming to life in its new environment. It still needs some maintenance! Carnet de bord, 30 mai 2022 The installation of the work "remurmurer la terre: hommage à Yvon Forget" began on Monday, May 30 with the shooting of a video for the... Carnet de bord, 1er juin 2022 We have spread the channels in the form of mycorrhizae .

Echos de la terre, window exhibition at 2126 Rachel East, May 3-June 14, 2014 Earth Echoes Window exhibition Collaboration Marie Perrault May 2014 ​ "These pieces of tableware appeal to us by the fullness and emptiness they define, as well as by their arrangement in space, creating effects of complimentarity and inversion of form, particularly in their reflections in the window. ​ These concerns anchor Marie A. Côté's practice in an exploration of the container qualities of her sculptures. They predispose her to find an original material to fill her pots ... ​ On the wall, raw clay drawings represent the porcelain bowls. In contrast to the glazed earth, they bear witness to a different appropriation of the territory and its influence on the lives of the inhabitants or on the perception of passing spectators. Echoing the swirl of blue and white porcelain, they anchor the artist's approach in another direct experience of the earth, recognizing its primacy as the container of our lives. ​ This turnaround gives a whole new meaning to the pottery and ceramics project that is reflected in this installation. In the end, going around in circles with the clay produces more than you might think ..." ​ ​ (from a text by Marie Perrault published by OBORO oboro.net)

Works 1986 - 2000 1/1

Les tambours, drums 2006 - 2018 1/2 The great circle The great circle Sketches for drums MNBAQ collection Small blue drum Collaborations and drums Peter Morin: Tahltan First Nation artist and performer Ziya Tabassian: percussionist I collaborate with Ziya since 2006, he plays on my works. Ziya is a very committed musician whose research on sound exploration both on traditional instruments and on objects that come from his environment leads him to exceptional and innovative sound creations. Each instrument or object is a subject of research and sound creation. And like him, Peter also plays the drum. The link was obvious. Impregnated with their respective Tahltan and Persian cultures, both seek in the rhythms to give the works meaning and breath. By playing on my ceramics my sensitivity is found to marry quite naturally with theirs. They give my works a voice that lets the clay as a material be heard, but also lets the resonances and ancestral knowledge vibrate, which become at the same time foundations and stepping stones. Excerpts of a presentation

Le cycle de l'eau, The water cycle brings together some of my pieces produced between 2000 and 2003 on the theme of water . Excerpts from the presentation of my work during the exhibition curated by Michel Saint-Onge, in 2002 at gallery B-312. "Whether it is a fascination or a social awareness, the theme of water motivates and guides my current reflections. The beauty of its landscapes which both alert all the senses is opposed a deaf and omnipresent deterioration of the resource. These reflections are superimposed on the concerns which mark out the whole of my work of pottery and sculpture. The boundary between two disciplines is sometimes difficult to set and it is in the proximity of this one, where the other begins, that a more lucid look at things takes shape and seems possible to me. It is in this line of thought that I imagined my most recent pieces, Plans d'eau , mostly made from individual bottles of water. I was trying to give shape to many questions that raised so many concerns about water, its heritage value and the common good. My new proposal does not escape my questions about water uses that would be more a matter of a profitable and appropriate calculation rather than an equitable sharing of the resource." Les végétations dormantes and le ruissellement ​ It is in the flattened space of the plane that many of my sculptures can be apprehended. This time, it is around projections of light and reflected surfaces on the wall and floor that they are organized. A line of light bounces off each of the glass objects or crosses them, leaving the eye to the shimmering and brightness of the reflections and the image thus projected. ​ Les végétations dormantes or Dormant plants are small ceramic bowls with the rim of a glass block, cut to their exact measurements. Placed on a discreet support and hung on the wall, they are reminiscent of water lilies floating on the surface of the water and the way they disperse. Here two points of view are possible: that of the reflection on the shelf and that of the flat surface of the bowls through which the dormant vegetation can be seen: crossed glances that constantly call out to the other. ​ As for le ruissellement , this sculpture takes up the idea of the container and the marketing of bottled water. It is a glass jug with holes in it that let out what one might believe to be its water and salt content. This reminds us that soil erosion is not unrelated to the fragmentation and deterioration of a certain image of nature. The jug thus depicted becomes a kind of microcosm of the earth, of its beauty and degradation. ​ ​ Body of water, carpet III , permanent collection of the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art Table game: the river River

Chants de gorge et paysages sonnores is a small installation presented at the biennale de sculpture de Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Anirniq, at the Musée de la mémoire vivante, from July 21 to August 21, 2016 1/1 Roundtable discussion The Relevance of North/South Exchanges Moderated by Michel Saulnier With Mattiusi Iyaituk, Beatrice Deer, Marie Côté and Laurent Gagnon Excerpts from my presentation ​ There is a profound simplicity to this affirmation of geographic and creative exchanges. One can find personal benefits, but exchanges like those proposed by La Biennale also help to open our collective horizons in order for us to see further and wider. ​ When I was up North I realized how much the environment, in its broader sense – both natural and constructed – provides a unique way of acknowledging and naming the world. Intimate and profound ties that connect us to the environment reveal themselves and testify to the plurality, the expansiveness, of humans and the territories they live in. ​ Those exchanges provide the foundation to questions such as “how to bring together” and “how to support” worlds that are so different. Living in a city, my horizon often seems only to be “just across the street” – it is locked in categories, folded into more layers, filters and segments. In the city the limited horizon blurs any sense of continuity and blurs the essentials of life, its beauty and its tribulations. ​ Mark Carney, the current governor of the Bank of England, talks of “The Tragedy of Horizons.” He talks about the failure of the financial world to imagine the world outside of short-sighted views. He talks about how we can miss the broader horizons for the future of our planet. For a banker, this almost “Shakespearean” expression exposes the two sides of the issue: one side being the objective, scientific and documented reality that concerns us all collectively, and that of our limitless imagination which connects each of us to our intimate relation with the world. ​ Sitting on a rock, I contemplated the infinite northern horizon, the place where boundaries dissolve themselves in an infinite sky. Perhaps this is where we can start our dreams. At this precise spot our place as human in nature is revealed, and the world can begin, once again, to enter our imagination. There in front of us. ​ I was there to learn and to allow the sublime beauty of the land to transport me. ​ Thank you very much.

Of Bowls and voices , exhibition presented at Oboro from April 27 to June 1, 2013, at the Clay and Glass Gallery from June 27 to September 1, 2013 under the title Of Vessels and Voices and as part of Ground Signal at the Surrey Art Gallery from September 23 to December 10, 2017 Oboro , Opuscule written by Marie Perrault and published by Oboro Performances by Lysa Iqalik and Annesie Nowkawalk Elektra 14 Anti / Matter International Festival of Digital Arts, Montreal, May 1 - 5, 2013 Text by Jean-Émile Verdier on "Bowls and voices games" Commentary: La source, forum de la diversité Singers: Margaret Mina and Ida Oweetaluktuk Bowls and recordings: Marie Côté Audio video editing: Olivier Girouard 1/1 My project is a visual and sound installation which also includes a series of clay drawings on paper. I produced this body of work in Inukjuak, Nunavik, over the summer of 2011 through a grant and an artist-in-residence program subsidised by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Aumaaggiivik (Nunavik Arts Secretariat), the Kativik Regional Government, and Air Inuit. Eight throat singers sang with and in the porcelain bowls I made specifically for the occasion. I recorded their chants in four different locations: at the Avataq Cultural Institute, in the community family centre Sungirtuivik, in a traditional Inuit inter-seasonal dwelling called a qarmaq, and in a house that served as my residence for the time I was there. Along with the music, the recordings also include the conversations between the singers, the repetition of particular melodic motifs, and the ambient sounds of everyday life in the north. I initially got the idea of singing and bowls when I heard Inuit singers in a concert given by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Kent Nagano. I was intrigued by the proximity of the singers’ mouths when singing and later asked one of them why were they so close to one another. She told me it was for the echo. This simple answer suddenly propelled my research into the world of Inuit vocal games, voice and echo. If sound reverberates through juxtaposed mouths, why not add to the phenomenon of sound reflection an element – porcelain bowls – capable in their very form of reverberation and resonance? It is around this question that my project Of Bowls and Voices finds its source and inspiration. The installation includes four porcelain elements or diffusers that play back the recordings through hidden speakers. When, by chance, one of the throat singer’s voices finds itself in harmony with the resonance of a bowl, the sound seems to spin and elevate itself in a gyratory movement that coincides perfectly with the roundness of the bowls. And within the same movement and in the same space, the bowls and voices reform and situate for the eye and the ear a little bit of the North’s colour and intonation. The circularity of the mouth and the bowls and speakers, and the northern sky all play off one another. ​ Voices : Elisabeth Nalukturuk, Nellie Nappatuk, Sarah Naqtai, Phoebe Atagotaaluk-Aculiak, Lysa Kasudluak Iqaluk, Margaret Mina, Annesie Nowkawalk et Ida Oweetaluktuk ​ Sound excerpts: Of Bowls and Voices Sound editing: Olivier Girouard 1/1 1/1

Les attrape-vents, Wind Catchers, 2007 - 2009 Vidéo: produced and edited by Mehdi Benboubakeur 2007, Zone d'affluence - promenade des arts inattendus de Mercier 2008, galerie Lilian Rodriguez et Les escales improbables de Montréal 2009, galerie Nuha Al-Ali, Damascus, Syria 2013, Clay and Glass Gallery 2016, Maison des arts de Laval and le musée régional de Rimouski 2018, musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, exposition Fait Mains ​ Video of Mehdi Benboubakeur 1/1 1/1 The Wind Catchers ​ Galerie Lilian Rodriguez, 2008 The attrape-vents (wind catchers) came about during the creation of a series entitled les vents (the winds). At the same time, I began collaborating with musicians. For me a ceramic takes shape through both its volume and its inner and outer space. According to a saying in the Chinese Tao, “One moulds a pot out of clay, but it is its inner void that holds what one wants.” It thus seemed obvious to me that the patterns engraved on the outer surface of les vents would also make sense inside the pieces, where a fertile void liberates sounds. Therefore, I turned my pieces inside out, as one would of a glove. Wind maps or isobaric maps depicting the directions and variations in the intensity of the wind inspire the patterns I draw on clay. Despite their purpose, these maps are amazingly aesthetic, their contours and lines spiralling in a flowing and changing movement. By blending the characteristics of the wind and my expertise as a ceramist, I design patterns that express the energy and strength of the wind along with the pressures and manipulations exerted on the clay being transformed to erect a pot. By nature, does the wind not ascend and descend in a perpetual and circular movement? Though our senses can perceive directly its active force, we are unable to grasp it regardless of the phenomena it generates and its strength on the environment. One can but try to discern its amplitude. Like my previous sculptures, the attrape-vents attempt to illustrate this invisible dynamics of space. Expanding this line of thought is a series of “drawings” I did on paper via a transfer method. When rolling raw clay on paper, the humidity of the clay that the paper takes in, combined to the shrinkage of the clay when it dries, crumples and wrinkles the paper. The result is drawings in relief. The transfer sets in motion all the forces at work, that of the clay, of my hands shaping the clay and of the paper – the qualities of its fibres and thickness also contributing to the surfacing of these impressions. Hence, the drawings are like imaginary topographies reconstituting the shifting of the clay’s humidity in the atmosphere of the paper. ​ The association of the papiers and the attrape-vents creates a surprising visual encounter between the folds of the paper and the patterns of the porcelain. The mismatch of the substances fades in favour of a reading in continuous mode from one motif to another. The whiteness of the papers and that of the porcelain retain light and expose the relief even further. Finally, this encounter conveys the permeability and interaction between the different forces involved and its vital spark. Lastly, a video comes with this exhibition. It is about a work I did in collaboration with the independent filmmaker Mehdi Benboubakeur. The film was shot inside three attrape-vents. Although the camera and the light magnify the patterns and drawings, the main subject of the artwork is the movement. Not that of the camera that is stationary, but that of the attrape-vents turning on themselves. In the process, it is the material, the clay that regains its original flexibility and malleability. ​

Contours, détours et retournements , curator Marie Perrault, exhibition presented at the Maison des arts de Laval, from May 1 to July 17 and at le musée régional de Rimouski, from October 6, 2016 to January 29, 2017. La fabrique culturelle Commentary Du simple au complexe , text by Kim Gagné published by the independent newspaper Le Mouton Noir . “Contours, detours and reversals”, curator Marie Perrault, Maison des arts de Laval, May 1 Rimouski regional museum, October 6, 2016 - January 29, 2017. The cultural factory ​ 1/1 ​ This exhibition of selected works of Marie Côté, a sculptor and ceramic artist from Montreal, captures her practice, exhibition record and informing intelligence over the past 20 years. It highlights the techniques, methods and composition procedures related to the decorative qualities of ceramics evident in her earlier works, particularly in the “Plans et dessins" series, “Le tapis” and “D'après Morandi.” It also analyses the reciprocal relationship between container and contained, between the vessel itself and the space that it both encompasses and is a part of, opening up broader issues related to the material aspects of ceramics, link to the earth, nature and landscape, that is typical of Côté’s more recent multidisciplinary projects. Her work shares the concerns of many contemporary artists with the environment and promotes cultures, both individual and collective, developing in harmony with land and nature. In her case, she is using the clay of the land, the voice of the land, and the voice of individuals within that land to articulate her understanding and her work. ​ A catalogue edited by Marie Perrault accompanies the exhibition. ​ Marie Perrault, curator Around the exhibition at the Maison des arts de Laval: Public meetings, Workshops Multidisciplinary performance, Les pas de l'eau, after Sohrab Sepehri with Ziya Tabassian and Olivier Girouard: July 16 Around the exhibition at the Rimouski regional museum: Friday January 20 and Sunday January 22, 2017, the Saint-Germain quartet performed the work of composer Christos Hatzis "The awakening". Hatzis and Côté discussed via Skype the importance of throat singing in their respective works. Interview on Radio-Canada première Musical performance with Tom Jacques, percussionist, Brunante evening Public presentations from January 25 to 28 Credits Pictures: Maison des arts de Laval: Guy L'Heureux Rimouski Regional Museum: Steve Leroux 1/1