The Atlas of Ovens is an artistic research project that explores the physical and social aspects of heat practices. It is a collaboration between Clémentine Vaultier, Maximiliaan Royakkers and Ciel Grommen, who bring their backgrounds in architecture and ceramics into the project. By studying and using infrastructures that contain and guide heat, such as ovens, they explore how to transform matter while also examining our relationships to communities and territories. As part of their research, they host workshops with different heat practitioners, including stove builders and bakers.
In the context of the Tidal Zone Experiences exhibition at Pilar (April 20 until May 25), they invite Jean-François Paquay, a specialist in ceramics and ash glazing, to explore the potential of using algae for sustainable glazing. On May 10 they will set up the fire to go through the full process of algae to ashes, ashes to glazes. They invite anthropologists, historians, archeologists, scientists, engineers and anyone who is interested in algae or in making fire to pass by at any moment that afternoon, discover and exchange their expertise. 

Clémentine Vaultier is a French artist based in Brussels. She dives into various media, sources, languages and fields of knowledge to weave a network of collaborative practices. Through observation of (art) history and iconography, architecture, ceramics, geology or food preparation, through drawings, photos, scans or transcripts of discussions, she collects, creates and organizes in porosity with others material, narratives and events, discussions around objects and research. She is part of the  pedagogical team of La Cambre national school of arts (Brussels) where she coordinates workshops and a transdisciplinary research course on heat and collective firing for master students.

Maximiliaan Royakkers and Ciel Grommen are a duo of artists/architects, whose work – on the threshold of artistic research, education and spatial design – questions social, political and ecological dynamics. Taking complex social contexts and often disturbed 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 alternative ways of living-together, inhabiting, and relating to our environments.

Jean-François Paquay is a specialist in ceramics and ashes glazing. His long-term practice is embedded in the care and cycles of his garden using the ashes of organic matter he harvests to make local and sustainable glazes. He mastered the understanding of what composes the soil and plants and more importantly how they interfere together, and what they can produce on an aesthetic level.