Expo Shifting Landscapes
From 25 April to 24 May 2025, you can visit the exhibition Shifting Landscapes by artist Renilde D'Haese at Expo Leuven. The exhibition explores the complex relationship between humans and nature in a world that is constantly changing. The works invite reflection and offer a glimpse of possible future scenarios.
In her solo exhibition Shifting Landscapes, artist Renilde D'Haese invites you to reflect on the changing world around us. The exhibition explores the fragile relationship between humans and nature in an era of climate change, pollution, war, deforestation and disruption. Her dreamlike yet ominous landscapes confront you with a future that is both repulsive and intriguing.
D'Haese works with carefully constructed models that she stages and photographs or films. Through digital manipulation, images emerge that balance between fiction and reality. The result is still videos and printed images that show the transience of landscapes — and the traces that humans leave behind.
Renilde always starts from her feelings, and artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Hans Op de Beeck and Wim Catrysse inspire her work.
"In my work, the world turns into a strange, distant environment. Like many of my contemporaries, my connection with nature is tenuous. We no longer sense how and where things are going wrong, and science will have to help us."
The series Shifting Landscapes shows bleak, apocalyptic images of landscapes where the human impact seems irreversible. Yet there is also beauty in these dystopian worlds. The fictional settings raise questions: is recovery still possible? Can we find a new balance with nature?
Alongside these disturbing landscapes, there is also room for stillness. In Secret Gardens, D'Haese dreams of a simpler life, of peace and tenderness. The series echoes a longing for a world in which humans can once again relate to their environment — with care, respect and wonder.
The exhibition arose from the theme ‘tipping point’ in the Interactive Media programme at SLAC. An important source of inspiration was a video in which an aeroplane slowly emerges from melting ice.
Practical information
Artist: Renilde D'Haese – artist from Kessel-Lo
Location: Expo Tweebronnen, Rijschoolstraat 4, 3000 Leuven
Period: 25 April – 24 May 2025
Opening hours: Thursday and Friday from 13:00 to 17:30, Saturday from 10:00 to 16:00
Admission: free
The exhibition Shifting Landscapes is part of the ‘LOVely Friend Event’ concept. We showcase projects and activities from partners that align with our programme line HumanNature, with a lot of LOV in the spotlight.
