Clémentine Vaultier

2025

5. Waffles tiles, research and development at Normandy Ceramics, https://www.normandy-ceramics.com/

4. How the snakes, residency at SODAS2123, Vilnius

2024

3. Smoking dragons, experiments around a couque de Dinant mold at the Fournil Hof Ter Musschen

2023

2. Met plaizirs, concept for a public artwork commission, Vlaamse Meesterproef, curated by Zeynep Kubat

2022

1. How to inscribe cultural property in the present ? Reading room at Jolimont, a text by Marie-Sophie de Clippele

Baking has many analogies with ceramic making, from molding to firing, without forgetting the central aspects of sharing knowledge and pleasure.

Biscuit means baked two times. Once, twice. Re-doing, reproducing, copying / pasting... In this series of projects, I am interested in reheating heritage, working from within collections and finding ways to relate to them.

I look at objects and images from the past - already made- with an interests in rediscovering forgotten crafts and aesthetics. I use the technics of molding, scanning, printing as intimate gestures to approch, twist and diffuse these cold and discarded forms.

This trajectory is rooted in experiments made with Marion Aeby with the help of the Bakkerij museum of Veurne

5. Waffles tiles

research and development at Normandy Ceramics

https://www.normandy-ceramics.com/

In context of the public artwork commission Met Plaizirs, I develop a series of tiles after molds of waffles irons.

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4. How the snakes

residency at SODAS2123, Vilnius

I was invited by Kamilė Krasauskaitė in the context of a social and cultural program around a bread oven she built in the artists' community SODAS 2123. I stayed one month and ended my stay at Verpejos residency

Travelling to Lituania, I was interested in types of (tiled) heating devices, from traditional houses to palaces. In the Grand Duke's Palace, a national museum rebuilt on its ruins in 2014, I went to visit collections and met archeologists Erika Striškienė and Justina Ramanauskienė h ttps://www.valdovurumai.lt/

I discussed and remade some molds with the great help of ceramicist Dainius Strazdas from the Vilnius Potter's Guild. And I also want to thank the national museum of Lituania for letting me wander in their collections https://lnm.lt/en/

At the Grand Duke's Palace, my first spark was one tile in a vitrin, I instantly made a connection with a love for a snake mold back in Brussels, I got interested in finding more and more about it.

I collected infos on it (amongst other treasures), where it was found (the soil under the palace, discarded from an old stove, reproduced by Dainius in his studio, drawn by the museum collection staff, remade in pedagogigal context, reproduced for the palace exhibition, with slightly different details and marks of technics and time...

I realised I question the notion of mold, as a way to transform, copy, disperse, diform.. how a figure would be reproduced, gain or loose details and meaning, get translated in different materials, and started playing with it.

I invited Marion Aeby for the final event of the residency around the bread oven around which we played with molds and recipes found in the archives. It allowed us to deepen our research on shifting gestures and tools from ceramic to bakery and reversed, to experiment with heritage.

3. Smoking dragons

experiments around a couque de Dinant mold at the Fournil Hof Ter Musschen

With Marion Aeby and Aziz from the Fournil Hof Ter Musschen

https://www.fournilhtm.be/htm/

Met plaizirs - vaultier_menen_communication_image3

2. Met plaizirs

concept for a public artwork commission, Vlaamse Meesterproef

curated by Zeynep Kubat

Scenario

In the common space of the social housing, old waﬄes irons are hung and people take care of them collectively. Once in a while, they are used outside. In their garden, a practical space, a barbecue area covered with tiles looking like waﬄes. Around the fire lit together, inhabitants gather and heat the irons, fill them with the dough, and bake waﬄes for the pleasure of all.

Concept

With this project I propose to oﬀer tools, recipes and a space to gather around the fire for the community of the social housing. Wafels Burendag invites to look at waﬄe making as a transgenerational federating platform for sharing, experimenting, and living together.

First spark

I have been collaborating with the Museum of Veurne in the past, for a project which aimed to warm up their collection of kitchen objects and documents. Borrowing tools and knowledge from their walls and experimenting around firing practices with diverse public, I was interested in refreshing the notion of heritage and transmission.

I have always been mesmerised by their huge collection of waﬄe irons. Out of the view of the visitors in the storage, they are hung closed, in a fixed and cold position forever. Driven by my excitement to discover their inner square patterns, I therefore wanted to play with the idea of opening the irons, collect and expand the grid of tiny tasty squares out of the museum.

1. How to inscribe cultural property in the present ?

Reading room at Jolimont, a text by Marie-Sophie de Clippele

https://www.jubilee-art.org/news/reading-room-23-how-to-inscribe-cultural-property-in-the-present

In the framework of Emptor we invite you to Jolimont Castle in Boitsfort (Brussels) for a group reading and discussion about the role of the collective in heritage preservation. We gather around excerpts from the text ‘Protéger le patrimoine culturel: à qui incombe la charge?’ by Marie-Sophie de Clippele, specialist in cultural heritage law.

Just as works of art, buildings and sites classified as heritage tend to be governed along criteria of historical interest and conservation logic. Their use value and inscription in the present often remain undiscussed. Even if public authorities already intervene in what is considered an absolute property right, the fundamental right to cultural heritage opens possibilities to re-think cultural property regimes and create space for a third player: the collective.

Marie-Sophie de Clippele, specialist in cultural heritage law, developed a theoretical model for a property of shared interest (‘propriété d’intérêt partagé’).

Taking theory into practice, Clémentine Vaultier opens the door of Jolimont for a reading room. At this castle in transition, on the edge of the Sonian Forest close to Brussels, Vaultier runs the collaborative research Cuire Ensemble Ici. Around the ruin of a ceramic wood kiln, she looks for ways to put the heat into the heritage and orient the pasts towards the future from within the collective.