° 1986

Ignace Cami is an artist that gives obsolete things renewal. Playing with the notion of ‘heritage’, he questions its place as being part of the natural law of society, whilst creating the conditions for its contemporary purpose and application. Today we see heritage with an overabundance of uses, from patrimony to carrots. Yet things that represent historical legacy have also become a site for contentions of the ideological kind, forming a friction between cultural stagnation and transformation. In this context, Cami asks such questions as: how might we relate to bygone cultural artefacts that are seen as inextricably connected to a place and a time? What happens when they are in the ‘wrong’ place or the ‘wrong’ time? What use is there for the archaic and the hyper-local? In what new ways can they find a meaningful place in the here and now?

Ignace Cami lives and works in Antwerp. He was a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academie from 2020-2021. Together with Ward Zwart he ran the artist-run space CRYING space. He has participated in many group exhibitions, including: KRASJ 5: Biënnale Actuele Kunst, Ninove (2021); TRACES of the future, Galerie valerie_traan, Antwerp (2020); Coup de Ville 2016, Sint Niklaas (2016); Stille kracht, De Warande, Turnhout (2014); His recent solo exhibition TROMPO, was held at DMW Gallery, Antwerp (2021). RE: ANKER at M HKA is his first museum solo exhibition.