Arent Weevers: Triptych, Video-installation, loop, 2020. A preview is to be seen here, read a visual meditation about this artwork here.
Grote of Lebuinuskerk, Grote Kerkhof 38.

Jesus’ Way of the Cross unfolds in the first station.

Arent Weevers designed a new work of art especially for the Grote of Lebuinuskerk. In Triptych he shows universal images of loneliness, innocent suffering, but also of longing for and working towards togetherness. In a video installation resembling the Christian retable, we see three young boys hovering in the dark and disappearing in slow motion. On the left panel a child peacefully floats in space. On the third panel a child covers his face. In the middle a child stretches both his arms sideways. This pose – consciously or subconsciously – evokes associations of a crucifixion. The installation is surrounded by ethereal new music.

This work is placed on the high altar of the Grote of Lebuinuskerk (UNESCO heritage), a monumental gothic hall-church, which was the main church of Deventer in the Middle Ages.

Arno Kramer: An Interrupted Life – in Memory of Etty Hillesum, monument, 1985.
IJsselkade, opposite Kapjeswelle 50.

Read a visual meditation about this station here.

It appears to be a superhuman task to accept evil and suffering in life. Many lead the way as an example: the lives of Jesus, Buddha, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi appeal to people worldwide. Etty Hillesum, a Jewish student born in Deventer, is less known. She lived in Amsterdam at the beginning of World War II. She was 28 years old – a year before she died – when she wrote in her diary: “Suffering is not beneath human dignity”. She was murdered in Auschwitz.

Visual artist and poet Arno Kramer created the monument An Interrupted Life in 1985. It is an upward slanting stone broken in the middle. There is a quote from the diary of Etty Hillesum (titled An Interrupted Life) chiseled in the memorial: “One would like to be a band-aid on many wounds.” The text refers to her selfless effort to serve the people in the concentration camps.

City Garden, Buiskens Cloister, Klooster 3.

The Cloister Garden, a beautiful oasis in the middle of the city – serves as a moment of reflection. It is situated near the former Buiskens Cloister, built in the 15th century. The canopy of a few large trees form a dome. In recent years, a botanical collection of plants was planted by two volunteers. The early spring bulbs will slowly blossom in the weeks of Lent. It must have been very hard to carry the cross on the road to Golgotha. It is mentioned in the gospels that Jesus could not carry his cross and that falling down was inevitable. Right before he was arrested, he prayed in fear alone in the garden of Gethsemane. He could only fulfill his Way of the Cross by having been to that place first, after his experience in the garden.

Roy Villevoye en Jan Dietvorst: The New Dress, video installation, 21,00”, 2016.
Roman Catholic Broederenkerk, Broederenstraat 18.

History also exists in micro-versions. The New Dress is a portrait of missionary Majella Hoppenbrouwers, now 86 years old, who has lived and worked with the Papuan people for almost her entire life. She arrived in the jungle as a 21-year-old novice in 1956, when Westerners were extremely rare. She was still lacking life experience and had ended up a missionary almost by chance. While the now elderly nun tells her story to Villevoye and Dietvorst, a seamstress makes a dress identical to the one she wore in the tropics. Hoppenbrouwers remains emotionless and matter-of-fact as she recounts this formative period of her life – until she puts on the new dress. This work refers to the heartbreaking fact that Maria knew her son would be killed and could not do anything about it. Roy Villevoye and Jan Dietvorst attempt to move beyond the usual narrative of exploration, conversion, exploitation and domination. In New Guinea, kept under Dutch colonial rule until 1962, the Asmat still led a traditional life as hunter-gatherers, and engaged in headhunting until late into the 20th century. Children were also killed.

Peter Bogers Roadmovie, 6,48” video installation, 2016. Preview here and you can read a visual meditation about this station here.
Geert Groote House, Lamme van Dieseplein 4.

The Geert Groote House is a national information center about Geert Groote, a 14th century thinker, and his movement The Modern Devotion. He promoted personal faith and a simple and devout lifestyle, in which repentance and commitment to the poor belonged together: to help the other carry his/her cross.

The vault in the Geert Groote House is furnished as a place for reflection. The video installation Roadmovie is placed there.

Fast changing pictures show images of the French countryside and stop by different road shrines and religious statues. The scenes are restless for the eye, noisy and somewhat disorienting. They contrast the static takes of religious images in the film: crucifixes and Mary altars placed usually at crossroads. The statues themselves help with these sudden contemplative transitions and make the viewer come to a halt too. Questions about the meaning of these places and images in our secular society are evoked.

Greetje van den Akker:Het Woord, (The Word), mixed media, 2013.Passieboek of the Modern Devotion, handwritten around 1450.
Bibliotheek Centrum, Stromarkt 18. 

The Athenaeumbibliotheek, part of the Bibliotheek (Library) of Deventer is home to centuries old and precious books, among others a Passieboek (Passion Book) which was handwritten in Deventer around 1450. The life, suffering and dying of Jesus is the central theme of this book.

Veronica offered her veil to the suffering Jesus to dry his face. Her name is combined from the words ‘true’ and ‘icon’. According to tradition, the face of Jesus was miraculously printed in the cloth. Through the centuries it was not always self-evident that images of Jesus or the saints were allowed to be created. For many the Word of God – the Bible – was enough.
The contemporary work of art, The Word, is a delicate cloth made from old bible pages, natural colour pigments and gold leaf. The fragmented printed words form a resemblance of Jesus’ face. The question is raised: what is the true image? Where is the face of the (O)other?

Masha Trebukova:Dead soldiers of Ukraine, papier-maché/mixed media, ongoing from January 2018.
Placed in an old coach house in the garden of KunstLokaal | Shop Droom & Daad
‘Het Huis De Reiger’ Stromarkt 9

Read the visual meditation over this station here.

There are always forgotten places full of history in an ancient city. The old coach house behind KunstLokaal Droom & Draad (ArtRoom Dream & Thread) is one of those. An abandoned house from the 17th century that has recently been opened up after being locked down for more than 100 years. A fading space, where invisible and hidden stories float around and where the artwork of Masha Trebukova has a natural habitat.

The small papier-maché bowls are made from newspapers. Each one of them shows a face and the birth and death dates of recent military casualties of the Ukrainian war. The artist collects their personal stories since early 2018. She portrays the (usually young) soldiers to remember their offer. They fell in the ongoing Ukrainian-Russian conflict on the Eastern border of Europe. They defend basic European principles and fight also for our freedom.
Observing these images at this station and this place can form a ritual of reverence.

“From April 2014 I followed the war in Ukraine closely, also on social media. Over the years and with no end in view, it has become a burning issue for me. A few months ago I decided to make this intimate memorial to the fallen Ukrainian soldiers – a personal mourning ritual. Unfortunately the number of casualties is too great and beyond my capacity to portray so I could only commemorate a small fraction of more than 4.000 military victims. This cruel war is practically ignored by the general public, with the exception of the occasional peace talk or an extraordinary event like an impeachment of a president.” (Masha Trebukova)

Károly Szekeres: De Wachtende Moeder (The Waiting Mother), East-Indies monument, 1999.
Grote Kerkhof 21.

The monument The Waiting Mother commemorates the soldiers from Deventer killed in Indonesia between 1945 and 1950, in WWII and its aftermath. A place of remembrance offering some consolation to the next of kin. Just like the original stations of this pilgrimage, it is important not to forget these events.

Fourteen names of fallen Deventer citizens are carved in this memorial accompanied by these words: “Now done with Our weeping, Our sharing, Our togetherness, But not resentful, not hardened. I carry you in the palm of my heart.” (‘Voorbij nu Ons wenen, Ons delen, Ons samen, Maar niet verbitterd, Niet gehard. Ik draag je in de palm van mijn hart.’).

Marianne Lammersen Zwaar bewolkt [Heavily Clouded], ceramics/mixed media, 2015.Placed in one of the windows of Sociëteit De Hereeniging, Grote Poot 2.

Marianne Lammersen reflects in a critical way on the (for many self-evident) idea of continuous economic growth. She is intrigued by the tension between technological progress on the one hand and the preservation of human identity on the other. To what extent are we still in contact with our social and natural environment? To what extent are we and will we stay human in the ecological disaster lying ahead of us? Will man fall under the weight of the cross of our times? Will the human race get up once again?

Questions about human dignity, identity, resilience and durability. Questions also conjured up by the 2.264 enlarged fingerprints of Deventer citizens incorporated in the modern architecture of the town hall. The artwork Heavily Clouded is exhibited next to this building, in one of the windows of Sociëteit De Hereeniging (to be seen from the outside). The society is more than 160 years one of the centers of the city around business, education and spiritual life.

Geert de Jong: Portret photography Oecumenisch Diaconaal Centrum het Meester Geertshuis, Assenstraat 20.

The soldiers gambled for the clothes of Jesus. A story that emphasizes once more that his dignity was taken away. No trace of compassion or respect was left.

This is very different in the Ecumenical Diaconal Center Meester Geertshuis, where people at the edge of society are welcome and seen as unique individuals.
It is not always easy to keep standing in an ever more complicated and impersonal society. Especially if you have little money, no friends or family to rely on, or if you had to flee your country. Many are forced to live in anonymity, also in Deventer.

Their portraits by photographer Geert de Jong underline their value in vulnerability. His respectful way of working comforts and dignifies people. The images are lively and worthy.

Sara Rajaei: 1978-the-231st-day,  video installation, 6,00”, 2012.
In the vaults of Mediavisie, Brink 90.

At the 11th station we halt to commemorate a moment of grave injustice and the price that was payed. The unbearable-ness of a catastrophe.
The work of Iranian-Dutch video artist Sara Rajei is a cry for righteousness. More than 400 innocent people, one of them her own nephew, died in the fire of the cinema of Abadan in 1978. That terrorist attack marked the beginning of the Iranian revolution. The perpetrators were never found nor condemned.

“In 1978 the 231st day the narrator’s words unwrap the facts, the rumours and the assumptions around the forgotten incident of a movie theater set intentionally ablaze. A struggle of remembering and reflecting, around the night of the incident, the following days and the fire’s painful aftermath. A contest between the comfort of storytelling and the unbearable-ness of a catastrophe. Obscure imagery as a unity that forms a black surface for words to appear, as nothingness projected on its screen, on the cinema screen, or in one’s mind. A monolith of unknown.” (Sara Rajaei)

There is a group of six statues on the facade of the Penninckshuis (Brink 89.), a well-known monument of the city, situated next to the building of MediaVisie, where the video installation is exhibited. They represent six virtues. Interestingly enough one of the well-known seven virtues is missing. Where is righteousness? Did it ever exist? The video temporarily represents the missing image as a cry for righteousness in our times.

Amos van Gelder: Family Cohen 1939 Deventer, acrylic and oil on paper, 200 x 240 cm. Etty Hillesum Centrum, Roggestraat 3

At the darkest station, the death of Jesus, we commemorate the darkest period of our recent history.

There are two permanent exhibitions in the Etty Hillesum Center, the first synagogue and Jewish school of Deventer : one over former Jewish life in the city and the other over Etty Hillesum.

Three paintings by Amos van Gelder are placed here. The artist is descendant of the family Cohen. They used to play an important role in the social life of Deventer. On one of the paintings the family is celebrating the birthday of Ru Cohen in 1939. Most of the members were killed in concentration camps. The artist painted Hebrew letters and texts around their heads: prayers and information about their lives. “I am a storyteller of sorts, I use images, paintings and written language. I am fascinated by the visual appearance of language; in my works, letters and words are the main material. I use their intrinsic quality, explore their form, re-arrange them, in order to create a space that portrays human consciousness.” (Amos van Gelder)

Naya Moussally: Arabic calligraphy Vluchtelingenwerk Overijssel, Bergschild 39

The confrontation with the death of a loved one is drastic. Then and now. What is there to say to the next of kin? What to write?  Arabic calligraphy was developed as in the Islamic world no images are allowed to picture God, angels or prophets. The beauty of the image of compassion in this case is meant to offer consolation. It is also meant to express that death has not the final answer. The young Syrian artist Naya Moussaly (18) is a refugee herself. She is asked to write a traditional Islamic lamentation in calligraphy for station 13. “And peace be upon me the day I was born, the day I die, and the day I am resurrected.” (Koran 19:33)

Ans Hey: Montagna Fontana, alabaster sculpture, 1979.
In the cemetery of the Bergkerk, Bergkerkplein 1.

On these ancient burial grounds there are many invisible so called ‘poor graves’. One tends to ponder one’s own transience here. But does death have the final word? This question is answered by the story of Jesus’ resurrection. The sculpture Montagna Fontana (Mountain Fountain) also offers an answer.

Read a visual meditation about this work of art here.