C-mine, 3600 Genk by Ilke Gers

Ilke Gers
C-mine, 3600 Genk, 2025
Paint
400 x 200m

During her residency at Jester, artist Ilke Gers explored the shared context of the C-mine site. The result is a public art installation in the form of ground markings that connect the various partners on the site.

The fragmented site has dominant and imposing vertical structures and various different architectures in close proximity. The work makes a connection between and along different areas of the location to build a cohesion across the site, expand sight-lines, and suggest areas that can be accessed and explored.

Analogue horizontal markings are made directly onto the ground, through movement – by pushing a mechanical mark making machine made to divide spaces. Rather than dividing, the work draws connections between spaces with markings that have their own logic, to form a kind of language, or handwriting, with consistent forms related to the location they are made in. The seven entry/exists across the site are each demarcated with parallel lines leading into the site, for instance. Circular forms suggest a kind of intersection with multiple directions to take, and larger markings suggest a gathering or coming together of forms, while curved lines drag the body around corners into new directions.

Without defining a single direction to follow, the markings suggest possible routes that can be viewed from different perspectives on the ground as well as from above – with a view from the still accessible pit towers, remnants of the Winterslag mine. The work has no fixed orientation, beginning or endpoint. Even from the towers, viewers always remain inside the work, able to choose their position and perspective within it.

The title of the work comes from the site that shares its name with its address C-mine, 3600, Genk. As a site-specific work, it is made intentionally to be alive in the space, and change with its location. The paint reacts differently to different surfaces it crosses over, and lines will fade in weather and as people and vehicles move over it. In this way the work doesn’t describe, imitate or illustrate the space, it is a moving language for the site that is affected by those who use it.

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Views by Mina Albespy

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