La lumière est un acte de vie

Light is an act of life.

Life can be an act of light.

A leap. Vertigo. Involuntary, but very real. Without a safety net, other than the one we weave. With gunshots. With scars. Sometimes uncertain, tentative. Often insidious and dripping, like a lump caught in the throat.

And blood-red birds tear at the sky, lacerating the horizon with great bursts of pointed feathers, oppressing all that is. All that could be. Like so many exploded mines. Exposed breaks. Indelible. Flapping wings like the rhythm of the rails, fracturing our memories. Concentric circles of memory in turmoil.

Light is an act of life.

Life must be an act of light.

For these birds that continue to fly with burned wings. Last ramparts against assaults. Frail armour only demanding to be opened. A refuge that barbed wires have attempted to pierce, wires that hope and resilience have transformed into restorative stiches.

And when this last surge of will triumphs, the borders will fall. Territories will be nothing more than a pile of suppressed letters.

Hearts will continue to beat. To fight.

For the missing.

And those to be born.

Text by Alain Lessard

Biographies

André Fournelle

For five decades, André Fournelle has been creating sculptures, installations, performances, public art and ephemeral works. He searches continuously for the meaning of life and death in his exploration of light that stems from fire, neon, fibre optics, laser and molten metal. Fournelle manipulates metal as well as coal, just as he shapes the light that he uses to draw targeted words in the space.

Joël Proulx Bouffard (collaborator)

In 1998, Joel began working in the visual arts and has never left. His work as a digital artist is focused on the convergence between the human being and the machine. Entirely devoted to the latest revolution, that of the digital, he observes, he criticizes and asks himself questions. He explores the junction of these two worlds to illustrate how much we are already interdependent. His work is about both shaping the pixel in any dimension and using robotics as a complement or substitute for our own limbs.

Alain Lessard (Author)

Fascinated by the freedom that words give him, Alain Lessard learned at a very young age that his hand, when armed with a pen, could immerse him in an imaginary world as fertile as it is endless. Author, playwright, producer, screenwriter and lecturer, he has written twenty or so publications, in addition to many plays and lyrics for songs. Some of his works are part of the academic curriculum of various high schools and CEGEPs and have become best sellers in Quebec. He is the head of Production Pixel d’étoile and his creative works have been seen by hundreds of thousands of people.