Urn garden (General Cemetery, Cemetery Avenue)

Churchyard Avenue, General Cemetery
Maker: © HanshanRoebers
Placed: 2004
Material: wooden urn walls, granite tile, stone and glass mosaic
On Friday, December 3, 2004, a sober ceremony inaugurated the expansion of the general cemetery. The expansion was realized on the grounds of the former Coers farm and tennis courts on Korte Vreugde. At this site are two urn walls with a total of 256 niches in which there is space for urns. The walls enclose a circular space and fan out into an oval. They provide shelter to a space where silence reigns and which is furnished with benches as a place for rest and meditation. In the middle of the space is a monument called "memories of life flown away." Walls and monument together form a garden of silence where next of kin can commemorate the deceased. The garden of silence was designed by monumental artist Hanshan Roebers from Koudum. He explains his design as follows: 'When someone dies, you enter a silence that is different from the absence of sound. Like in the eye of a hurricane, there is absolute silence. The two semicircles extending into ovals also enclose a core of silence. Around it the elements go wild'. The monument consists of a spring of water in a round glass mosaic of seven birds in a blue sky. 'We fly in the sky, come together to fly up with each other for a while and part again in the infinite sky.'