Elias Cafmeyer

Centrale presents Elias Cafmeyer’s installation Les gargouilles de Catherine at Centrale | vitrine (09.10 > 07.12.2025).

Elias Cafmeryer’s artistic practice stems from his fascination with urban development. His site-specific installations often result in tragicomic illusions that question the use and representation of public space. His practice relies on strategies such as inversion, juxtaposition and contrast, creating a sense of alienation and commenting with humour on absurd situations in the urban landscape.

For Centrale | vitrine, Elias Cafmeyer delves into the history of the urban development of the Sainte-Catherine area and its church. The current Sainte-Catherine church is a second version built between 1854 and 1874 on the site of a basin in the former port of Brussels. The original church was part of the façade of the rue Sainte-Catherine, where the Centrale is located today. Due to flooding from the Senne during the middle of the 19th century, the entire odd-numbered side of rue Sainte-Catherine, including the church, became unfit for habitation and was demolished. In 1892, the City of Brussels built its first power station on this site to supply the rapidly expanding public lighting system.

Elias Cafmeyer reintroduces a fragment of the old church into the building that replaced it. Trapped inside Centrale | vitrine, the old façade re-emerges and accentuates the presence of the street’s hybrid and eclectic architecture. By reproducing a historical element slightly inaccurately, Cafmeyer temporarily adds another historical artefact to the district. He creates a new tourist attraction alongside the Tour Noire and La Bellone. With this gesture Cafmeyer addresses the Disneyfication of the Sainte-Catherine area, a process that is transforming urban planning and local culture to meet the expectations of tourism.

Elias Cafmeyer (1990, Bruges) lives and works in Brussels. Elias Cafmeyer graduated in 2022 from LUCA School of Arts (Brussels) with and Educational Master in Visual Arts and in 2017 from Sint-Lucas (Antwerp) with a Master in Visual Arts. He has exhibited his works in museums such as S.M.A.K. and Extra City. He made temporary installations for the public space in collaboration with the cities of Antwerp and Ghent.