Emptor
Assembly of Practice / Gathering wood

5 p.m – 7 p.m.

this event is held in English

Assembly of practice and public moment: What does it mean to own?

On April 14th Emptor organises its first Assembly of Practice, a moment of collective reflection, and a public moment at C-mine, Genk. Emptor is an artistic research on the ecology of artistic practice and departs from the question: How can we practice ‘property’ for a sustainable visual arts field? Artists involved so far are Kobe Matthys (Agency/Agentschap/Agence), Katya Ev, Ciel Grommen & Maximiliaan Royakkers, Grace Ndiritu, Vermeir & Heiremans, and Clémentine Vaultier and reflection partners a.pass (Brussels), BUDA (Kortrijk), Jester (Genk), Kunsthal Gent. During the day, Emptor invites a group of engaged artists, art workers, and institutions to reflect on the challenges our current interpretation of property imposes, within the artistic field and beyond.

Public moment 5 – 7 p.m.

Sprokkelen (Gathering wood)

In an attempt to publish and perform our ongoing exchange on practising property, Emptor invites you to a public moment of collective wood-gathering as a way to actively participate in the reflection on the notion of property and how it influences our use of common resources and art.

Introduced by Emptor dramaturg Steyn Bergs and Ciel Grommen & Maximiliaan Royakkers, the wood gathering is followed by a keynote on open source cartography by Atelier Cartographique Brussels and a collective session of cartographing our findings.

Meanwhile, Clementine Vaultier will make sure we don’t get hungry, taking from her research on ways we raise, use, and diffuse warmth.

Location: daybed in the field behind LUCA School of Arts
– follow Barenzaallaan until the end and turn left,
– find us on Google Maps,
– join a group departing from C-mine visitors desk at 5 p.m.

Ciel Grommen & Maximiliaan Royakkers
First Firing
05.02.2022

4.30-7.00 pm

In the years 2020-21, artist-architects Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers (BE) developed site-specific research, departing from CIAP’s transition and its move to the post-industrial landscape of Genk. With help of local experts and enthusiasts, the artists produced a unique series of ‘the devils of Winterslag’ — the bricks once produced at Winterslag from residual material of the mining process. In the next stage, these bricks were used to build a layered platform in the open air. Inspired by the Chinese ‘kang bed’ and the Russian ‘pechka stove’, this brick ‘daybed’ can be heated from the inside, creating a welcoming atmosphere for people to gather or for small animals to seek shelter in its nooks and crannies.

In this artist talk, Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers share more information and anecdotes about their research project. The talk took place in July 2021 at CIAP, as part of the programme ‘Domesticity and Hospitality’.

PRACTICAL INFO

On the 05 of February from 4:30 p.m., the first official firing session will be organised. We hope to welcome you to the heated daybed together with the artists. There will be signalisation on the C-mine site.

In the future, the heated daybed will continue to be used for various artistic activities, but we will also share it with the residents of Genk. Would you like to use the daybed for your event? Contact FLACC/CIAP.

Clay Conversations
pop-up exhibition
04.09.2021

The pop-up exhibition Clay Conversations is part of a series of events around the heated daybed on the C-mine site. This unique meeting place was realised by Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers within the scope of their project Le Paysage Ménagé, which provides both a physical and theoretical framework for future interventions on-site, bringing together its different users.

In the second stage of the project we had a surplus of clay, sourced at the foot of the terril and prepared by the artists. The clay consists of minestone — a mixture of sand, clay, water, and coal particles present in the ground. The residue coal present in the clay accelerates the firing process and accounts for unique, black-charred accents in the ceramics This special material was used to produce the bricks for the heated daybed.

The clay surpluses from this project were redistributed to all interested parties on the condition that they later will bring back their creation. The pop-up exhibition on and around the daybed featuring works by artists, other organizations, volunteers and neighbours involved in our redistribution action. Together with the artists behind Le Paysage Ménagé, we will talk about making your own clay from local soil and about what you can do with this versatile material.

PRACTICAL

This event takes place in and around the heated daybed on the C-mine site (follow the signs from the C-mine energy building, to the adjacent grass field behind the housing estate). In case of unfavourable weather conditions, the event will move to the CIAP exhibition space on the first floor of the C-mine energy building.

This event is part of a series of events planned on and around the heated daybed, a public sculpture created by Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers within the scope of the project Le Paysage Ménagé. The project has been realised in co-production with FLACC — workplace for visual artists, and with the support of the Flemish Community, the City of Genk, and CIAP members.

Les jeunes sur l'herbe
an afternoon with performances
27.08.2021

CIAP’s Young Members Stefanie De Bakker, Rachel Daniels and their invited guests are taking over the heated daybed and transforming it into a stage for an afternoon of performances and encounters. Starting from sound and the body, the artists seek out surprising connections with the platform, the surrounding landscape and the public.

 

By using blankets as a scenography in the field around the heated daybed, a pleasant environment is created that invites the visitors to relax and observe. Blankets are associated with intimate activities that bring rest and security such as napping, relaxing, cuddling… In the grass the blankets form a place that encourages interaction,  where meals and conversations are exchanged. With the pun Les jeunes sur l’herbe, the association with picnicking is not too far off.

 

PROGRAMME

• 3.00- 9.00 PM Refreshing dialogues by Milan Gillard & Stef Lemmens
• 4.00 PM soundscapes by Itzorf
• 5.00 PM Tea ceremony by Anne Büscher
• 6.30 PM Musical performance by Stijn Wybouw & Rachel Daniels
• 7.30 PM  Dance performance by Samuel Valo Reyes

 

PRACTICAL

The performances take place in and around the heated daybed on the C-mine site (follow the signs from the C-mine energy building, to the adjacent grass field behind the housing estate). In case of unfavourable weather conditions, the event and activities will move to the CIAP exhibition space on the first floor of the C-mine energy building. You can book your spot here!

photo: Stefanie De Bakker

 

This event is part of a series of events planned on and around the heated daybed, a public sculpture created by Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers within the scope of the project Le Paysage Ménagé. 

The project was realised with the support of the Flemish community, the city of Genk, FLACC and the CIAP members. 

Ciel Grommen, Maximiliaan Royakkers & Accattone
Domesticity and Hospitality
03.07.2021

an afternoon of talks and encounters in and about the disturbed landscape 

special guests: Sophie Dars & Carlo Menon from Accattone magazine

Join us on the 3rd of July for an afternoon dedicated to the artistic and architectural practices dealing with landscape as a site of domesticity and hospitality.  

This special day marks a turning point for the long-term research project Le Paysage Ménagé, initiated in 2019 by Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers on commission by CIAP and FLACC. 

Departing from the question of how to inhabit the ‘disturbed landscape’of Winterslag, the project envisioned a series of spatial interventions, ‘furniture’ for the landscape that invite us to make new connections with and within it. Starting this summer, the heated daybed which the artist are currently constructing on the C-mine site, will become a public furniture, used by the art organisations, guests, neighbours, but also providing shelter for small animals and breeding ground for plants.

The talk is the first episode in the series of events planned on and around the heated daybed, and bringing together its different users. 

PROGRAMME

• 3.00-3.30 PM Artist talk with Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers
• 3.45-4.15 PM Talk with Sophie Dars & Carlo Menon from Accattone 
• 4.30-5.00 PM Q&A on and around the heated daybed
• 3.00-6.00 PM Launch of the edition Verwarmde aarde, verstoorde grond by Grommen & Royakkers

The afternoon starts with a talk by the two artists behind Le Paysage Ménagé — Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers, who will take us on a visual journey through their research, going back to the concepts underpinning the project. Making their way through their archive, the artists will talk about their experience of working with ‘disturbed landscapes’, about  ‘furnishing’ instead of ‘developing’, and they will share amazing stories they ‘unearthed’ in the course of the project. It is a moment of reflection on the values and ambitions from which Le Paysage Ménagé originated, and at the same time, an opportunity to open the project up and re-embed it in a broader context.

This is where the presentation by Sophie Dars & Carlo Menon, the editors of Accattone magazine, comes in. Sophie and Carlo will share some insight into the making of the magazine — or, as they call it, ‘an exhibition on paper’— and they will zoom in on a few specific practices featured in the latest, 7th issue, deal with open-air domesticity and the diplomatic hospitality of land.

Following the two presentations, all guests are invited to join the artists and the editors for an informal Q&A moment on and around the platform. This moment will also mark the official launch of the edition Verwarmde aarde, verstoorde grond developed by Ciel and Max in collaboration with CIAP.

PRACTICAL

Both presentations will take place at C-mine (specific location TBC) and the Q&A will take place at the heated daybed, on the C-mine site (see the map).

Throughout the entire afternoon, the edition, the 7th issue of Accattone magazine and other related publications will be displayed and distributed at the CIAP stand at the daybed.

SPEAKERS

Ciel Grommen  (°1989, Sint-Truiden) and Maximiliaan Royakkers (°1988, Hasselt) are a duo of artists/architects, whose work on the threshold of artistic research, education and spatial design questions present social, political and ecological dynamics. Often taking complex social contexts anddisturbed landscapes as a starting point, Grommen and Royakkers develop their projects through extensive fieldwork, spatial interventions, and other interactive, participatory formats. Their role as spatial practitioners involves weaving of new narratives into spaces and testing out alternative ways of living-together, inhabiting, and relating to our environments.

Accattone explores minor practices in art and architecture through the specific means of the printed magazine. As an exhibition on paper, each issue is a montage of contributions whose shared positions towards reality, history and representation resonate with one another. A-periodical, self-published and non-subsidized, Accattone was launched in 2014 by two architects (Sophie Dars & Carlo Menon) and two graphic designers (Ismaël Bennani & Orfée Grandhomme), joined in 2019 by architect Galaad Van Daele. 

Contributors to Accattone #7 (May 2021): Costantino Nivola, SNCDA et al. at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Aglaia Konrad, Alice Paris on De Smet Vermeulen, Osamu Ishiyama and Kenji Kawai, TEN, Wim Cuyvers, moilesautresart, DSCTHK, Piovenefabi, Emmanuelle Chiappone Piriou on Superstudio, Carlo Goncalves on Smiljan Radic, The Museum of Mistakes on Arakawa & Gins, and Zuber panoramic wallpapers.

This is the first in the series of events planned on and around the heated daybed, a public sculpture created by Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers within the scope of the project Le Paysage Ménagé.

The project has been realised in co-production with FLACC — workplace for visual artists, and with the support of the Flemish Community, the City of Genk, and CIAP members. Le Paysage Ménagé is part of ELEMENTS — a collaboration between art and cultural institutions in Dutch Limburg, Belgian Limburg and Liège and North Rhine-Westphalia.