Atlas of Ovens
Clémentine Vaultier, Maximiliaan Royakkers and Ciel Grommen‘s Atlas of Ovens is an ongoing collaborative research project on containers of heat and rituals of baking. How and what do we fire, with whom do we share the resulting warmth? Since 2022, the artists research how these infrastructures can transform not only matter, but our relationships to communities and territories.
The Atlas of Ovens is an artistic research on heat practices through studying and using the infrastructures that contain and guide them. Starting from the idea that heat is as much a physical phenomenon as a social one, we explore how ovens function not only as containers of physical energy but also as relational infrastructures. More than mere technical shells guiding energy transformation processes, ovens radiate towards communities and can produce new forms of social relations.
In this research, the intangible of social practices becomes matter to work with by encountering firing contexts and transforming materials. We wish to gather around, discuss and speculate in order to circulate knowledge and experiences of heat and energy, rethinking how we can face current challenges together and generating new relationships that support warm(ing) practices.
The Atlas of Ovens intends to document, understand and play with diverse forms, functions, interactions, resources, governances and rituals of heat infrastructures. The fragment Fire, smoke and dust focuses on visual material related to the production and conduction of heat and smoke. The collection on the wall is a starting point for discussions and additions, and for a future program radiating out from the building: a tour ‘From Chimney to Chimney’ in Ghent and a Reading Room on relational infrastructures in collaboration with Jubilee.
The collage of archive images is presented on the big wall in the back of the building of 019, Ghent. Visual links weave together illustrations of how to make fire, of the conduction of heat and smoke, of smoking food and communicating with smoke, the functioning of wind and chimneys, the destruction of chimneys, the problems of smog, etc. The collection is a starting point for discussions and additions around the stove designs presented in the Radiator group exhibition.
Excursion by bike tracing a heath network, visiting a former brick factory turned into a hostel, sharing narratives of ghosts of the textile industry to 1000 fires and a propaganda centre for gas and electricity, sharing insights of exciting objects like “gloeisokken” and pipes… Contribution to Radiator, group show in 019, Ghent.
Hosting Heat
Visual essay on hosting heat, contribution to Thresholds, magazine from the department of architecture of MIT
From algae to ashes, from ashes to glaze
Workshop with Jean-François Paquet on making glazes from ashes of algae, contribution to Tidal Zone Experiences from Algae Diplomacy, at Pilar Brussels
Excursion and workshop with Marion Aeby from Compagnon bakery, Aziz et Alain Doornaert from the network of bread ovens around Brussels, contribution to Jubilee Summer School 2023 in Brussels
Design proposal of a multifuncional oven/stove/kangbed and educational tiles on top of it, contribution to Magasin/Magazine d’Accatone, Prix Charles Abella, concours d’architecture de l’académie de beaux-arts de Paris
Stove Staircase
Design-and-built of a batch rocket stove, workshop with Peter Van den Berg in de Kleinaart, Ulbeek
Find a collection of images and other research documents on the website of Clémentine Vaultier