In the jargon of higher education, ‘alumni’ refers to all graduate students who left school recently or many years ago. Etymologically, this Latin adjective referred to all those, children or disciples, who were nourished (lat. alere) by their alma mater, their foster mother. For this exhibition, the term 'Alumni.ae' is associated with the notion of manes, which means ‘souls of the dead, ghosts, tutelary shadows’. Roman tombstones often bore a Latin dedication in the dative, Dis Manibus, hoping to attract the benevolence of these ‘geniuses’ of the past.

Alumni are no longer just students or former graduates. They are the ghostly witnesses of a fertile rhizome, a subtle, rich and surprising network that shapes the identity and raison d'être of an artistic powerhouse like La Cambre.

The Alumnis Manibus event brings together eight artists graduating in 2023 and winners of the ASBL des Amis de La Cambre prize. Each year, this jury, after a careful visit to the Graduate Show (exhibition of Master's degrees) and lengthy deliberations, decides to support certain projects deemed remarkable.

This year, to showcase the progress of their work two years after graduating, the idea was born to offer them the opportunity to invite another artist who is a member of the school's community. This invitation was intended to be open, with no strict instructions. As an alumnus of fifteen years, I imagined that this freedom would give rise to a variety of responses, reflecting the many possibilities offered by our Alma Mater...

Some of the pairings came about naturally, through personal affinity. Alba Suau and Killian Ryan invited Celia Rancelot (painting), Oya invited Sam Bouffandeau (engraving and printed images) and Maëlle Lucas-le Garrec invited Sophie Holmström (drawing). After two years apart since graduating from the school, these artists have seized the opportunity to reunite with their favourite partners. Having come from the same workshops, these dialogues bear witness to common paths, shared experiences and the birth of friendships.

Other duos were formed around a formal or thematic approach. These include Majbritt Verheijen Van Dyck (Interior Architecture) and Xavier Duffaut (Engraving and Printed Image), and Jana Katanic (Visual and Graphic Communication) and Romane Iskaria (Photography). Coming from different workshops and different graduating classes, they discovered each other's work through exhibitions organised by the school or on the Brussels scene. Although the artists didn't know each other personally, their work nevertheless has a powerful dialogue. Jana Katanic and Romane Iskaria both explore the issue of highlighting a specific community or territory. Xavier Duffaut echoes the work of Majbritt Verheijen Van Dyck. Their small sculptures of misappropriated objects question our relationship with urban space, oscillating between delicacy and unease.

Finally, a final type of encounter was revealed through these invitations: that of decisive transmission. Maud Brunstein (Textile Design) invited Félix A. D'Haeseleer (Professor of Colour), and Mathilde Gazeau Frade (Book and Paper Design) invited Isabel Baraona (Painting). These intergenerational pairings are a reminder of the decisive influence of encounters on an artist's career. For Mathilde Gazeau Frade, it was her meeting with Isabel Baraona that triggered her entry into La Cambre, fifteen years after the latter. For Maud Brunstein, it was the colour classes given by Félix A. D'Haeseleer that nurtured and consolidated her unique approach to textiles.

Lola Meotti, executive curator.

Published on 05.03.2025

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