Public Art Inauguration
February 29, 2020 at 1pm
LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE is proud to invite the public to the official inauguration of Welcome Out a public art project designed by the artist Amélie Laurence Fortin which will take place on February 29, 2020 at 1:00 pm on the Nazaire Fortier street.
In 2005, Amélie Laurence Fortin had been invited to participate in a collective residence at LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE as part of the Manif d'art 3 - Cynicisms?. During this residence, the public was solicited to eliminate the artists in order to determinate a winner. At that time, a massive arrival of reality shows contaminated broadcast channels and the centre had seen the opportunity to take of this television approach. Towards the end of the residency, Amélie Laurence Fortin had written Welcome Out in spray paint above the door in the Nazaire Fortier street. For the artist, this graffiti was a reaction to the cynicism of the biennial in which the artists had been invited to participate. She questioned the process of elimination that was imposed on her and her colleagues.
In 2019, Amélie Laurence Fortin was invited for a solo residence in LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE as part of the Manif d'art 9. During her residence, she noticed that the same graffiti was still here. In order to highlight the 15 years of collaboration between the artist and LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE, the Welcome Out graffiti will be preserved as a public art project for the artist-run centre.
The integration of Welcome Out leads to a questioning of the evolution of practices and of the artist-run centre itself. The work being designed initially by the artist with a punk posture becomes a sophisticated object designed in the laboratories of LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE. This project echoes the refinement of the centre's production techniques while affirming the desire to preserve traces of the past.
We would like to thank the generous contribution of the honorable member of Taschereau, Catherine Dorion, representative of Québec solidaire at the National Assembly of Québec.