Edition 2009

Nico Dockx expresses his fascination with archiving, cataloguing, memory, data management, and the transmission of information through various media and methods. He often does so in collaboration with artists from different disciplines, embracing the challenge together.

In collaboration with Helena Sidiropoulos, Nico Dockx used the archives of the Centre for Fine Arts (Bozar) as the basis for his installation. He tackled the memory and history of the location where he was a guest, deeply reflecting on how the institution had dealt with these aspects over the years. “From the very beginning, I wanted to develop an interdisciplinary installation that would function as a receptive intervention on the ‘memory’ of the Centre,” said Nico Dockx. “I used plasticity to create a projection of a sequence of images.”

Nico Dockx lives and works in Antwerp and teaches at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He has held residencies at, among others, Künstlerhaus Bethanien and DAAD in Berlin. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally and has published over forty artist books through his independent publishing house Curious. He is also the co-founder of several interdisciplinary projects.

Jeroen Hollander’s drawings consist of maps of imaginary cities and imagined communication networks, a fascination that has captivated him since childhood. His works are made with pencil and/or marker, usually on A4-sized paper or larger. He has been drawing this way for many years. “What is the meaning of a route or a line?”, Arbo Dench wonders. This question relates to Hollander’s search for the ideal public transport system. “Where should a line run? Where should it stop? How can you travel comfortably?”

Jeroen Hollander lives and works in Schaerbeek. He was discovered by chance by Jan Hoet, who invited him to participate in his exhibition Yellow in Geel.

Beyond their documentary value, Robert Kot seeks to create an imaginary context with his images, going further than the simple recording of reality and extending toward a content that is sometimes more conceptual, at other times more figurative: topographical portraits and decayed landscapes where reality blends with fiction into an almost imagined world.

The series of black-and-white photographs that Robert Kot exhibited for the Young Belgian Art Prize is a selection from a larger, ongoing body of work, to which new ideas and images are added from time to time, like a diary or a kind of travelogue.

Two elements are of great importance in the work of Lara Mennes: cultural history and memory. Architecture is a recurring theme. The artist approaches it as both social and personal narratives, as landmarks of the past within a landscape. Mennes’ photographs of buildings not only depict the structures themselves but also capture the personal and global connections within them, as well as post-industrial elements that have influenced the architectural landscape. Through her analog photography, the artist explores the material culture of the past and all the histories it carries.

“Cité by Lara Mennes confronts the viewer through photographs and text fragments with a sometimes forgotten ‘piece’ of Belgium, where a remarkable religious history becomes visible. In 1902, coal was discovered in Limburg, and from 1913 onwards, construction of mining infrastructure and associated residential neighborhoods began in Winterslag, based on a design by Adrien Blomme,” wrote Christophe Van Gerrewey.

Lara Mennes studied photography at Sint-Lukas Brussels University College of Art and Design and art history at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She later completed a master’s degree at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London. She has exhibited, among others, at the FoMu in Antwerp (2012) and the Emile van Doren Museum in Genk (2012).

Caroline Pekle’s work led the viewer away from the Palace to a gigantic image displayed on the facade of the Royal Administrative Center. Upon returning to the Palace, visitors passed by the eye of the Photographer at the entrance, a drawing made with grey pencil, standing as a silent witness to a visit to the exhibition. Pekle’s installation moved between reality and mental imagery, raising questions about bodies moving through reality and gazes moving through an imaginary world. It resembled a topography, outlined with roadmaps, with at its center a Castle of Cards that evoked a place both ideal and fragile.

Caroline Pekle lives and works in Berlin.

Els Vermang is interested in the interaction between materiality and immateriality, using both traditional and new techniques and materials. Although her artworks are the expression of a systematically applied process using an elementary vocabulary, they place mathematics and physics into perspective. She draws inspiration from scientific and philosophical reflections, positioning her research within the genealogy of conceptual art.

For the Young Belgian Art Prize, Els Vermang exhibited a series of works created in collaboration with the Brussels-based collective LAb[au] and the team from the MediaRuimte gallery. Their approach can be described as an n-dimensional, parametric, and transdisciplinary exploration of spatial thinking. The sculptures Frameworks 5x5x5 and SwarmDot, along with the series of prints Chrono, showcased the different formats of their work. Interactive and generative processes merge into a contemplative whole that transcends the boundaries between traditional art and the avant-garde.

Els Vermang lives and works in Brussels. She graduated as an architect from the University of Antwerp and was part of the trio LAb[au] from 2003 to 2023, before embarking on a solo career. As a curator, she won the Europalia Curators Award in 2019, which resulted in an exhibition at KANAL.

The forms and materials used by Leon Vranken feel strangely familiar. They are elements removed from their original context, redefined by the artist as if he were reinventing them. Vranken’s work moves across various disciplines, exploring the boundaries of sculpture, and is often characterized by the use of industrial materials and ready-mades. In contrast to the impersonal and mechanical production processes typical of minimal art, Vranken presents a poetic ensemble of sculptures that sometimes confuse themselves with their own non-functionality.

In his installation for the Young Belgian Art Prize, Leon Vranken combined pure geometric forms with everyday objects, repurposing them to create new functions. In doing so, he subtly shifted our perception of reality. His work evoked confusion and uncertainty in the viewer, sowing existential doubt about the ‘authenticity’ of what was seen and the causal impact of an action on its surroundings. While the exhibition space influenced the visitor’s experience of reality, the visitor, often unknowingly, also influenced the work itself.

Leon Vranken lives and works in Antwerp. His work is part of the collections of the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp and the Center for Contemporary Non-Objective Art in Brussels. He has held solo exhibitions at White Box in New York and participated in the Beaufort Triennial in Ostend.