The The Hague City Illustratorship is innitiated by the municipality of The Hague, the The Hague City Archives (HGA) and art space Nest.
In 2023, Babette Wagenvoort was announced as the first City Illustrator. Between 2023 and 2024, Wavenvoort captured more and less spontaneous meetings around The Hague.
Starting in March 2025, Kexin Hao is The Hague's second City Illustrator. Hao has a unique and colourful style and typical way to involve her audience into her work. Her work is interdisciplinary, research focused and participatory. Hao likes to work on the border between art and ‘non-art’.
Kexin Hao's first drawing as City Illustrator.
As a City Illustrator, Hao wants to depict the live in the city from the perspective of local animals. In her first drawing she introduces her first character: the seagull. While the seagull roams the skies, other animals and stories will follow about food, people, the environment, the present and the past in the city of The Hague.
Workshops and exhibitions
During her work as City Illustrator, Kexin Hao will organize workshops in which young participants create mascots and drawings depicting the city live in a playful manner. The creations made during these workshops will be weaved into her drawings.
Every month, newspaper Den Haag Centraal will publish one of Hao's draiwngs. Besides this, her work will be exhibited at Nest, public libraries and the Galerij of The Hague's City Archive in the tunnel of tram stop Spui.
Babette Wagenvoort
From 2023 to 2024, Babette Wagenvoort was The Hague's first city illustrator. In her drawings, Wagenvoort depicted current events in a soft and playful way. Climate change, the relationship between humans and nature, history and other events – her archive of drawings offers a broad image of the city of The Hague. You can find the full archive of her drawings here.
Nest enjoyes to open up the door and explore places outside the walls of the exhibition space together with artists.
Nest enjoyes to open up the door and explore places outside the walls of the exhibition space together with artists.
In addition to the exhibitions and programmes in the space at the De Constant Rebecqueplein, Nest can also be found at other locations. Like on the grass of festival grounds, in local newspapers or on art fairs. Some of these projects are one-off, others are recurring. You can find these projects here.
