Contact
cielgrommen@hotmail.com
Happy to be part of
Seasonal Neighbours, a collective of artists and designers, which I founded, interesting in issues of cohabitation and seasonality in Europe’s countryside︎︎︎
Jubilee, an artist-led platform based in Brussels, supporting each other in developing artistic research practices and collectively researching topics like ownership and authorship rights, commons and cooperative organisations, mapping nomadic art practices... ︎︎︎
Areaal, an exchange platform on art in rural space, led by Plan B︎︎︎
Veldwerkers, an initiative to think about an alternative future for the terril of Winterslag, led by C-mine Cultural Centre
An artistic research practice
Critical, spatial and social
My artistic practice deals primarily with space. I am very interested in the ways we live together, which is why the projects are strongly social and public in nature. I first studied architecture at KU Leuven (with a focus on urbanism) and am still very interested in its matters-of-concern. But I also did a master in fine arts at the HEAD of Geneve, where I learned to embrace criticality and the possibility to include doubts and exchange in spatial practice.
Situated and attentive
As a methodology, I like to engage with particular contexts, to inhabit them and to interact with its inhabitants, to participate in activities, to understand its belief systems and regime, learn about its narratives from the past and its aspirations for the future... By spending a lot of time somewhere, I naturally enter into relation with it and others.
In the past I have had a great focus on extraterritorial spaces. I elaborated projects in and on Husn, a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, the demiliterized zone in between North- and South-Korea, and the freeports and warehouses of Geneva.
More recently I changed my focus to spaces of production, like fruit farms in Borgloon and Hoogstraten (Belgium), an automobile factory in Valenciennes (North of France), C-mine, a former mining site in Genk that is redeveloped with real-estate and culture (Belgium)...
E-ducational and imaginary
With my artistic gestures (constructions, events, maps, books, stories, conversations, lecture performances) I strive to a form of understanding or awareness, that can be both the beginning of knowledge (encouraging a public to gain knowledge about something) and the result of it (it makes knowledge tangible in a certain way).
The kind of knowledge I work with is not a knowledge that appeals to truth claims, but a knowledge that is embodied (sensory), situated (context-based) and imaginary: one that materialises other possibilities, new relations and underexposed perspectives.
Long-term & collective
I am not afraid of working in complex contexts where art is not evident, but I insist on being able to take time.
I also like to collaborate with others, which takes a bit more time, but always leads to better works. The talented Maximiliaan Royakkers, Clémentine Vaultier and Maxime Brygo are for now my closest collaborators, but there are many more, and I am always happy to include new people and perspectives in projects.
Trans-disciplinary or un-disciplinary
With a degree in architecture, a love for art, an interest in anthropology, an affinity with philosophy, a talent for science, an engagement in pedagogy, close relations with farmers and a joy in building (low tech) constructions, I consider myself an transdisciplinary amateur. Maybe my professionallity lays in the freedom I take of bridging different disciplined perspectives, by reaching out to experts of very different kinds and assembling them in imaginative projects.
Institutional support
At this moment I am elaborating a pHd titled “The art of habitation in places of production” at LUCA school of arts (Ghent), in the research cluster Art, Pedagogy and Society. Within and beside this, I continue different artistic projects in close collaboration with other artists and artist platforms.
In the past, my projects have been hosted by C-mine, Genk; Artsonje Art Centre, Seoul; Z33, centre for contemporary art, Hasselt; Travail & Culture, Roubaix.
Resulting artworks have been shown in the various venues like the Flemish Architecture Institute in Antwerp; Red Cross Museum in Geneva; 019 Ghent; Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels; Live In Your Head Gallery in Geneva...
Articles about my works have been published in Oase journal, Metropolis M, De Witte Raaf, ...
Projects have been funded by the Flemish Government, De Buren, Interreg Europe...
