Sophie Auger-Grappin

Function: Director Le Creux de l’Enfer Country: France Visiting period: 27 - 31 March Visiting year: 2023

After graduating from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d’Art (ENSAAMA) in Paris with a degree in applied arts, Sophie Auger earned a master’s in art history and cultural management from the École Supérieure d’Art et de Culture (Paris) and a post-graduate degree (DESS) in cultural development from the Université de Sociologie in Rouen, where her research focused on the specific conditions for the creation and production of arts centres in France.

From 2000 to 2001, she served as the assistant to the director of the Fonds d’Incitation à la Création (FIACRE), a French government agency awarding grants to artists under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. She next joined the Centre National de l’Édition et de l’Art Imprimé (CNEAI), where she worked as an exhibition development project officer from 2002 to 2006.

From 2008 to 2018, she appointed as director of Micro Onde, the centre for contemporary art at L’Onde in Vélizy-Villacoublay near Paris, where Auger-Grappin offers a program of monographics and collectives exhibitions. She is the founder and former director of the artist-in-residence project initiated by the Centre Céramique Contemporaine La Borne (CCCLB) created in 2014 in the famous village of La Borne renowned for its rough stoneware. Since 2018, she has been the director of the contemporary art centre of national interest, Le Creux de l’enfer in Thiers (63 Auvergne), founded in 1988.