The Soul of Things is an immersive exhibition created by Quebec artist Noémi Bélanger. At the intersection of visual and performing arts, raw matter comes alive to poetically express the sensitive nature of the living.
For the creation of her characters, the artist favors an ancestral and little-known technique: needle felting. This dry-felting method uses specialized, barbed needles to entangle wool fibers and densify the material, building up structural volume.
« Le fil rouge, c’est une balle de laine qui s’est déroulée — je vous convie à suivre sa trace, qui en toute liberté s’enlace entre la matière, le jeu et le récit et se teinte de la couleur du sang, intimement liée aux femmes si proches du principe de la vie. »
(“The red thread is a ball of wool that has unspooled — I invite you to follow its trail, as it freely weaves between matter, play, and storytelling, infused with the color of blood, intimately bound to women so close to the principle of life.”)
— Excerpt from the upcoming French monograph
The artisanal textures left by the passage of thousands of needle pokes in the raw wool remind us that the work is handmade, echoing the human presence behind the labor onto the characters. As a material with an uneven composition, felted wool gives the characters a presence that is both strange and deeply familiar, inviting visitors to inhabit a unique space between the inanimate and the living.
Solo exhiibition The Soul of Things by Noémi Bélanger at TOPIC in Tolosa from April 1 to Septembre 20, 2026. Triligual catalog (English, Spanish, and Basque)107 pages. View the catalogue
The Soul of Things is a nomadic and living exhibition, ready to travel and inhabit your spaces. If you would like to explore the possibility of hosting it in your community, please feel free to write to us to discuss it. noemi@losdebois.com
The exhibition’s trilingual catalogue at TOPIC features a foreword by Louise Lapointe, President of UNIMA International. The artist intimately shares the sources of her inspiration, always driven by her desire to breathe life into matter.