_Collaborative practice of architects and artists Pieterjan Gijs (1983, Leuven) and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh (1983, Leuven) founded in 2007. 

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The work of the duo Gijs Van Vaerenbergh inevitably seeks to be framed within the fields of architecture or the visual arts, and yet neither seem fully satisfactory. Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh met during their architecture training, and have since worked within a more or less classical architectural environment.

Immediately after their studies, however, they developed a parallel practice in which they applied their technical and theoretical know-how towards an experimental research that focuses neither on the ‘user’ nor on the production of autonomous images.

The output of their research varies from works in the public space and architectural structures to sculptures and smaller works. Within this grey area, the duo has gradually developed a practice that thematizes the friction between function (architecture) and autonomy (the image), and that raises the question as to where the daily experience of space becomes aesthetic. 

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 Their work mainly consists of public sculptures, site-specific interventions and experimental constructions. Central to their practice is a research into the fundaments of constructing and their impact upon the viewer. The duo misappropriates the language of architecture to use it as a medium for self-reflexive projects. Their interventions transform space and lay bare underlying, almost evident qualities. Their installations often refer to architectural typologies such as the church, the gate, the arch, the arcade, the base and the column: Gijs Van Vaerenbergh redraws and transforms them into autonomous works. 

(Koen Sels)