Keramis is both a museum and a contemporary art centre. By continuously fostering a dialogue between heritage preservation and contemporary artistic creation, Keramis positions itself as a living institution, firmly rooted in its time and in that of its audiences.
In this context, the museum regularly hosts artists in residence in its Studios. The Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles provides support for one of these residencies through the Residency Prize Young Contemporary Ceramics of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.
The primary aim of the Residency is to enable the artist to pursue their ceramic practice, research or experimentation outside their usual creative environment. This Residency Prize therefore provides the human, technical, logistical and financial conditions needed to either conceive, complete and produce one or more ceramic works or to prepare and carry out an original ceramic project.
Prior to the residency in the Studio, the Prize includes a group exhibition of artists preselected by Keramis. A jury awards the Residency Prize at the opening of this exhibition. After 50 days of creative work in the Studio, a presentation is organised within the museum. This may take, for example, the form of an exhibition.
Cécile Massou – 2026 winner
Here, Cécile Massou chooses to present two pieces: ‘Feu de l’enfer’ (Hellfire) and ‘Écho’. Two functional objects – respectively a kiln and bells – which here become familiar monsters. Her universe is steeped in queer culture; by appropriating medieval monsters and diabolical figures, Cécile Massou restores to the monstrous its desirable character, to the grotesque its flamboyance, and to the repulsive its magnificence. Through these chimerical creatures, the artist celebrates the strange.
Feu de l’enfer (Hellfire) stems from a desire to restore a ceremonial dimension to everyday objects. At a time when the plancha has replaced the wood fire, Feu de l’enfer invites us to honour the symbolic and spiritual power of fire, its magic. The lighting and use of the fire transform the garden into a lively, animist collective celebration. Here, Cécile Massou chooses to present Feu de l’enfer with its ashes and smoke-blackened teeth as a memento of the flames.
Écho is a reminiscence of a visit to the Louvre, the artist’s reaction to the Etruscan bell-idol, an antiquity behind glass that we shall never hear ringing. A chimerical creature escaped from a bell tower, Écho is the result of a fusion between gargoyles, dragons and amphibians with obscene tongues.
Barbara Léon Leclercq
La tisseuse – The weaver
La tisseuse is a guardian.
Perched on her pedestal, from afar she takes on the morphology of a large spider. She waits in ambush, as if ready to pounce, menacing.
Yet, on closer inspection, one can discern long dog’s legs – a more protective and familiar figure.
Les lignes form a visual continuum that runs through the artist’s entire work, extending as new forms emerge. By drawing lines from floor to ceiling, a gruelling cycle unfolds: eat or be eaten.
They can be understood as complex narrative frameworks that contradict one another, unfolding alternative versions of the same scenario. This unsubordinate movement unfolds successively within the space: the perception of a highly stretched, torn animal carcass, then the detail of the strange architecture that constitutes its innards and finally the creature that devoured it. Further down, finally, the same body, intact, reassembled, yet different and devoured once more a few silhouettes further on. All these episodes are seen as an example of the association of ideas.
From a distance, the figure of a guardian, arms crossed, wings half-spread. It is a Sphinx, a chimera. It seems to be waiting, its body taut and stretched, as if ready to pounce if necessary. Yet, if you walk around it, you discover a vulnerable creature withdrawn into itself.
The rupture occurs in the twist: whilst on one side there is a sense of tension, on the other, the creature is curled up, hiding behind the wing that envelops it. It is rather as if it were pretending to sleep.
Is it resisting sleep? Or is it feigning it?
La Sphinge endormie is a guardian: protective, yet at the same time menacing. All of these things at once. The Sphinx will not pose her question today.
She stands her ground, but she resists.
Luna-Isola Bersannetti
These three pieces are part of the ‘Reptilian’ series, conceived as a vibrant reinterpretation of myths. By revisiting legendary female figures long demonised—such as sirens, serpentine creatures and cursed fairies—the artist seeks to transform them into resilient and powerful presences. The ‘skins’, conceived as both fragile armour and sonic envelopes, embody successive metamorphoses: mutation, encounter, emancipation and reconstruction. As bearers of mythological memories, they pave the way for a constellation of alternative, plural and inclusive narratives.
Each new skin retains traces, echoes, and sometimes fractures, like so many layers that make up a story still unfolding. Much like a mythology in the process of being written, these figures come together as they appear, forming a constellation of singular yet interdependent protagonists.
Each carries its own evocative power, its own sense of time and its own energy, while forming part of a shared movement towards emancipation and enabling new forms of identification. The transition from one skin to another is akin to a ritual of shedding. This metamorphosis, in which every stage of existence involves both relinquishment and transformation, evokes the process by which it becomes possible to cast off old limitations and embrace a new way of being in the world.
La Dualité (Duality) embodies the encounter. In a liminal space, evoking murky, marshy waters, a spellbinding presence emerges, reminiscent of the Heleades, nymphs of the wetlands and ambivalent figures of seduction and transformation. Two bodies face each other. Their gazes meet, establishing a silent, profound and intimate connection. This is neither a confrontation nor a power struggle, but a mutual recognition. Far from being strangers to one another, these bodies merge their individuality in a shared movement. The encounter thus becomes the setting for an alliance, a mirrored dance in which identities are reshaped through interaction.
La Naissance d’Aphrodite (The Birth of Aphrodite) embodies a gesture of emancipation. Just as the goddess rises from the sea foam, these bodies emerge from a state of constraint or invisibility to attain a new form of freedom. Wings unfold, the gaze turns towards the sky. The body opens up to space, stretching its arms towards what lies beyond. This elevation does not refer to an idealisation of the feminine, but to an affirmation of power and a desire for existence freed from normative frameworks.
In Larme des coquillages (tear of the seashells), the figure gains in density and grounding. The movement settles; the body no longer seeks momentum but balance. The forms are full, assured and mineral-like. The shell with its lustre and pearly texture, connects the body to water, to the memory of the sea but also to the moon, its cycles and its invisible tides. This figure is no longer in the process of emerging or undergoing immediate metamorphosis but in a state of fulfilment. Larme des coquillages embodies a sovereign maturity, a presence that unfolds without tension, imbued with the passage of time and the memory of the elements.
