Marie Côté's Bol chantant, resembles a planetary body that becomes alive through sound, activated by the human touch. It is hardly an elegy for dead clay, but rather a celebration for the living earth. Marie Côté collects clay in nature and on the land. Each clay has its own unique qualities that tell the story of the territory and the communities that inhabit it. The Bols chantants (Singing Bowls) and chunks of earth are made from clay, collected with the help of Victor Girouard (engineer agronomist) on the Rang (rank or tier) of Saint-François in Saint-Hyacinthe during the summer of 2019. The Montérégie and the entire Montreal plain form the main clay sedimentation basin of the Champlain Sea, dating back 10,000 years. Marie Côté harvested the clay at the bottom of an irrigation canal. Grey in its natural state, once fired it becomes orange because of its iron content. Côté has worked with naturally-sourced clays collected from various regions but says that of all the clays she has worked with, this one resonates the best because the sound wave emitted is audible for several seconds.

Sourcing clay in nature has opened up a whole range of research possibilities that adds to Côté’s artistic concerns, saying: “Whenever I hold a lump of new clay in my hands, I have the feeling of discovering a singular world that carries a memory and tells, in its materiality, a territory and a history intimately linked to that of the communities that inhabit it.”

Robert Lebeau, Curator of the Sutton Art Gallery wote: When Marie Côté discovers a place, a territory, she is not satisfied with the surface or the landscape. She goes under the surface, seeks the earth, the depth of the place, its specificity, it takes hold of it and makes it live differently. Like a witch, she listens to the land she makes speak and sing.