After fifteen years of restoration, the historic monastic complex of Park Abbey in Leuven is opening fully to the public for the first time, and museum PARCUM is marking the moment with a large contemporary art exhibition. Titled Threading Landscapes, the show brings together work by 24 artists from around the world, nine of whom have developed new projects in direct response to the abbey, its architecture, landscape, biodiversity, archives and history.

The exhibition is curated by Daniel Feldman, Katya Garcia-Anton, Maria Ines Rodriguez and Ana Sokoloff, and runs from October 24, 2026 to March 28, 2027. It treats the reopening as more than the completion of a building project. For the organisers, it opens a new phase in which heritage is understood not as something fixed, but as an ongoing process of interpretation, care and meaning-making.

At the heart of the show is a question about how people relate today to a place carrying almost nine centuries of history, while also shaping its future. The curators frame ideas such as community-building, local connection, contemplation, spirituality and care for one's surroundings not as nostalgic values, but as practical tools for thinking about contemporary ways of living together.

Against a backdrop of ecological strain, polarisation, loneliness and rapid technological change, those themes take on renewed urgency. The exhibition asks what the spirit of this particular place might mean in the twenty-first century, inviting visitors to encounter the abbey's religious heritage as a starting point for exploring present-day social questions rather than as a closed chapter of the past.