The Light at the End of the Lockdown

[September 16, 2020]

Canadian Artist Amélie Laurence Fortin was supposed to spend all twelve months of 2020 outside home, having a sojourn at Quebec’s studio in Berlin and making her way through Europe from east to west. But she didn’t foresee the springtime lockdown. Stuck in Warsaw, her bad luck turned to good: she had access to an attic, complete with a skylight. From her stay there was born a series of images: essentially, under a beam of light, her body underwent a thousand stagings, provoked a thousand different forms of lighting. Disseminated on social media, Light Exercises is also a participatory project, supported by the Zomertankfestival run by the Werktank production platform based in Leuven, Belgium. Given Fortin’s small budget, this exploration of a space, low-tech by nature and minimalist in essence, can be reproduced by anyone at home. During the time of confinement, it is truly apropos.

Amélie Laurence Fortin, from Light Exercices series, 2020