Contact
cielgrommen@hotmail.com
Happy to be part of
Seasonal Neighbours, a collective of architects, 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 living 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.
Methodology
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... With constructions, events, maps, books, stories, conversations, lecture performances, I try to weave new narratives into spaces and test out alternative ways of living-together, inhabiting, and relating to our environments.
I am not afraid of working in complex contexts where art experiments are not evident, but I know that it takes time, especially to gain trust. To avoid the loneliness of research, I prefer to develop projets in close collaborations with peers. Maximiliaan Royakkers ︎︎︎, Clémentine Vaultier︎︎︎ 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.
Focus
In the past I have had a great focus on extraterritorial spaces, inspired by Giorgio Agamben’s writings about the ‘state of exception’. 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 (Belgium)...The writings of Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Bruno Latour, David Graeber and Anna Tsing are of a big influence for the work.
Why or what for?
With my artistic gestures I strive to a form of understanding or awareness, that can be both the beginning of knowledge and the result of it. It can encourage a public to gain knowledge about something, or it makes knowledge tangible in a certain way.
The kind of knowledge I work with is not necessarily 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.
Institutional support
At this moment I am elaborating a pHd in the arts 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 besides this, I continue different art projects in close collaboration with other artists and artist platforms.
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...
