The first contact with the photos of Paul D’Haese is surprising and fascinating: despite their inviting character they have something inscrutable. With their open spaces, their brilliant light, their soothing silence, these photos are indeed an invitation. We can not deny their beauty. The frame seems deserted, we get the impression of being able to walk there in peace, or perhaps we have ever walked there, in our minds. The surprise we experience seems familiar – Unheimlich Freud would have called it, but the experience runs smoothly without fear, without excessive restlessness. Yet they keep us at a distance and they seem far away and inaccessible: the countless walls or ruins, the trompe-l’oeils and dead-end alleys, the broken-off perspectives, the interrupted escape routes do not offer a concrete landmark, no support for the errant gaze. Are we in a hyperrealistic dream, a hallucination?