Clairière / Clearing
The intention at the heart of Clairière exhibition is to explore and observe how the body’s sensory potential generates sensory effects. Thus, the idea is to visit one’s liminal space and become aware of one’s impressionable perceptions. The installation presents a world of soft shapes, bright colors and captivating textures. Wide, interwoven strips of recycled carpet are stretched from floor to ceiling, and weave their way around to create a sensually delightful chamber. Here and there, some strangely shaped somatic sculptures seem intent on slipping through the net, infiltrating the space until they litter the floor. Immersed in the artwork, some people may experience an ambiguous feeling, that of being on the edge of familiarity and strangeness. This is because the installation is about the senses, rather than the meaning.
Text: Émilie Granjon
Performer in the video: Elinor Fueter.
Exhibitions:
CIRCA Art Actuel, Montréal. Ongoing until June 21st, 2025.
Public engagement:
Artist presentation - May 31st
Multisensorial guided visits for the public - May 24th, June 6th
5-week art class at downtown activity centre for seniors - Action Centre Ville with CIRCA Art Actuel
Multisensory / tactile visit for visual impaired publics - RAAMM (Regroupement des Aveugles et Amblyopes de Montréal Metropolitain)
Supported by Canada Council for the Arts.
Photos Jean-Michael Seminaro
Tactile visit — inviting visually impaired public to experience the exhibition through touch, smell and sound.
With members of RAAMM (Regroupement des Aveugles et Amblyopes de Montréal Metropolitain). Photo: Wendt+Dufaux
One channel video displayed in the installation. Performer: Elinor Fueter
Clairière inhabited by visitors.
Photos Wendt+Dufaux.
With the tips of my fingers, I connect to the world.
I touch the surface of others.
I open myself up to what I am not.
I become what my skin explores,
and I let in the energetic flow of things.
I read their texture like a story.
Fascism reigns and grows
in myth, in delusion and in the derealization of the body.
It spreads when we lose touch with physical reality, with nature and its countless textures.
Can we resist fascism
by more deeply embodying the sensorial world?
By touching, by feeling, by caressing
with love?
Touch is a humble power.
Every flower, every track left by an insect in the sand is a manifestation of this resistance.
The complexity of a snowflake is the opposite of fascism.
Fascism is minuscule!
It is the noise made by humans who are afraid of their own insignificance
beneath the vastness of the cosmos.
Text featuring in the video “Clairière”. Author: Wendt + Dufaux 2025