Action 2 of The World’s Heaving Breath

‍ ‍Fishead Lab presents, on March 19, the second “act” of the exhibitionThe World's Heaving Breath. This iteration features the work of Dutch artist Bart Houwers. The exhibition opens on March 19, 2026, at 18:00 and runs until March 29.

This presentation focuses on Houwers’ workHEDWIGE, which addresses the tensions between agriculture, nature, and industry. HEDWIGE refers to a reclaimed polder landscape located at the border between the Netherlands and Belgium. In 2022, this century-old agricultural land was deliberately flooded and transformed into a salt marsh as part of an EU ecological compensation policy linked to the expansion of the Port of Antwerp. This transformation not only provoked strong protests from local farmers, but also exposed deeper contradictions between agricultural production, industrial development, and environmental governance.

In fact, the site has long been subject to processes of continuous “design”—from land reclamation and rational planning to its integration into industrial agricultural systems, and now its re-naturalization. Within this process, ecological restoration is realized through large-scale engineering, yet it is accompanied by the displacement of pollution, the relocation of residents, and the disintegration of local ways of life. “Nature,” in this context, shifts from a shared environment to a site of conflict.

The case of HEDWIGE reveals a localized fragment of a global system: from agricultural production in South America to European port logistics, and from environmental policy to land governance, multiple systems converge and interact here in complex and often contradictory ways. It ultimately raises a critical question:

‍ ‍When “nature” itself must be constructed through engineering and planning, is the promise of architecture and design—to create a better life—an achievable reality, or a belief that requires fundamental reconsideration?

Why is your spirit so sullen that you eat no food?

Print on blueback paper

176,8 x 122 cm

2026

Courtesy the artist

Estuary

Print on blueback paper

100 x 120 cm

2026

Courtesy the artist

Force someone’s hand

Print on blueback paper

150 x 250 cm

2026

Courtesy the artist

Khemerin Vismara collection

PFAS Polder

Print on blueback paper

102,8 x 170,8

2026

Courtesy the artist

Liparis Loesli

Print on blueback paper

2026

117,5 x 185 cm

Courtesy the artist

Bart Houwers (Aalten, 1997) is a Dutch visual artist and spatial designer.

Through large-scale, site-specific installations and speculative research, he critiques the fetish of perpetual economic growth, particularly as it manifests in intensive farming, the commodification of farm animals, and the mass production of meat and dairy. His work examines how this growth-driven logic reorganizes landscapes and infrastructures while shaping cultural values and the psychological realities of farming families. Working with pre-existing materials, he constructs fragmented, often displaced structures that redirect movement and reframe familiar environments.

His work has been presented in several exhibitions; We Live here Too at Buitenplaats Wijlre (2025), Beestachtig at Museum W Weert (2025), Underbelly at De Ateliers Amsterdam (2024). He has been artist in Residence at NDSM (2025) and at De Ateliers (2022-2024).

Within the framework of Fishead Lab’s Flowing Banquet program, the exhibition The World's Heaving Breath is curated by Yin Shuai and young collector Khemerin Vismara. The exhibition title is drawn from Rainer Maria Rilke’s 1922 poetry cycle Sonnets to Orpheus, taking the rhythmic movement of “breath” as a connective medium through which to respond to contemporary conditions.

The exhibition unfolds through five interrelated “acts,” each lasting ten days, forming a sequence of dialogues. The participating artists come from diverse backgrounds: Marie Cool Fabio Balducci (France, 1961; Italy, 1964), Bart Houwers (Netherlands, 1997), Liu Ding (China, 1976), Juan Pablo Macias (Mexico, 1974), and Margherita Moscardini (Italy, 1981).

Their practices unfold like the movement of breath: maintaining individual autonomy while remaining inseparably interconnected. Together, they shape a collective inquiry into the dynamics of perception and the construction of meaning through artistic production. From their critical perspectives, the exhibition invites viewers to engage experientially with overlooked connections, and—amid an anticipation of ongoing instability—to rediscover possibilities for inhabiting the world and its structures.

Project duration: March 5 – May 17, 2026
Location: Fishead Lab, Via Eugenio Camerini 2, Milan

The World's Heaving Breath

March 5 – March 15: Margherita Moscardini

March 19 – March 29: Bart Houwers

April 9 – April 19: Juan Pablo Macias

April 23 – May 3: Liu Ding

May 7 – May 17: Marie Cool Fabio Balducci

Presented by Fishead Lab

Graphic Design: Wang Yuxuan

Project Coordinator: Zhou Ziqi

Communications: Liu Ziwei

Exhibition Installation: Tan Di