The exhibition has been extended until 30 August due to its great success! Join the free guided tour on the first Sunday of every month and discover the diary, the creation of the paintings, and the artistic vision of the German artists Uwe Appold and Roger Nyssen.
They drew inspiration from the wartime diary of Sister Maria Theresia Kummer. Working independently, each created a series of twelve paintings, giving their own visual interpretation to the diary’s fragments and emotions.
A member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus, Sister Kummer kept a diary at Huize Loreto during the final ten months of the Second World War. As the fighting around Aachen drew ever closer, she recorded the daily lives of the convent community, local villagers, and soldiers in a region increasingly dominated by war.
Her moving notes were published in the book Echo uit Huize Loreto (Donné Jaegers, Heemkundevereniging Simpelveld-Bocholtz).
“One afternoon, while we were washing the dishes, a piece of the house façade suddenly crashed down, right in front of the refectory windows. … Soldiers with machine guns were standing in front of our house. … Then the village siren began to sound, and soon everything around us howled and crackled.”
Passages such as these form the historical foundation for the paintings in this exhibition. In their work, Appold and Nyssen each offer a unique artistic interpretation of these deeply personal testimonies.
The exhibition thus brings together a historical voice and contemporary art around one enduring and timely message: remain in peace.
