Artists from Poland, Germany, Korea, the USA and France worked on the "Art on Site" project with the now 10th art symposium at the Park Cemetery. The fact that the open-air gallery that was created here in 2015 became a Via Regia meeting place in 2018 is an extraordinary artistic and cultural contribution to the condensation of history and the present.
Every year, GEDOK holds an art symposium at the Leipzig-Plagwitz Park Cemetery. The artists work on different topics directly on site for a few days. The creative processes can not only be experienced, but art is also made visible as work in public space. The works created during the symposia remain on site for at least 1 year and can be viewed in the park cemetery during opening hours or find their place in the GEDOK open-air gallery "Alte Salzstraße", which can be visited at any time. Since 2015, artists have presented more than 60 works of art in the "Alte Salzstraße" gallery on the Via Regia and in the open-air gallery in the park cemetery, paintings, sculptures, installations, landscaped areas and a sound installation "Music in open space". Unfortunately, not all works of art are currently on display. Some works of literature and video art can be heard and seen via QR code.
The themes addressed by the artists are multiple and always linked to this place:
2015 Thema "Leben und Tod"
2016 "religio"
2017 "Kreuzwege - Lebenswege"
2018 "Offenes Plenair"
2019 "Stille - zwischen Abwesenheit und Kreation"
2020 "Un-Fassbare Zeit“
2021 "Gespiegelte Zeit"
2022 "Gedankensplitter"
2023 "Grenzen.verschieben"
2024 "a.time.line"
Impressions
The "Via Regia" is the oldest and longest land connection between Eastern and Western Europe and has been the "Cultural Route of the Council of Europe" since 2005.
Artists from GEDOK Leipzig, the Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery Association and the VIA REGIA Begegnungsraum Sachsen e. V. are following the idea and using the "Cultural Route" as a mediator.
In 2018, the open-air gallery "Alte Salzstraße" in Leipzig Plagwitz became an official GEDOK meeting point on the VIA REGIA.
With their art symposiums, the artists combine culture with history and promote international exchange in the long term.
Created in 1880, Plagwitz cemetery is tucked away behind the former cotton mill, which has become an important space for art and artists.
The large neo-gothic cemetery chapel with the beautiful façade made of red bricks lets us feel with what ambitious intentions the founders of this cemetery once looked into the future. The heyday of this cemetery lasted only about three decades. When the First World War ended, so did the formative force of the great Plagwitz industrialists. The spirit of the place took considerable damage from the great economic, social and political shocks of the following years. Only recently has the visible new beginning in Plagwitz given rise to a hope that the venerable cemetery can return to its old meaning and tradition.
New ideas are expanding the cemetery concept. In addition to classic funeral ceremonies, alternative forms of burial are now possible, for example tree burials. At the same time, the place of mourning transforms into a place of landscape and art.