Outdoor exhibition: The Merry Destruction
ExhibitionDate: to
Location: Orange Nassau I grounds
Exhibition at the ON I site in Heerlen.
On the former site of Oranje Nassau I mine - once the beating heart of Heerlen's mining past - the exhibition The Merry Destruction tells the story of a vanished landscape and a city in transition. You can walk freely through the open-air exhibition with XXL billboards and listen to a sound walk via a QR code that reveals the stories behind the vanished heritage.
Part of the exhibition is the mirror with the Bosnian town of Zenica. There, at the end of 2024, the last mine closes, exactly fifty years after Heerlen. Zenica is where Heerlen once was: on the threshold of a great change. This parallel places Heerlen's past in a broad European perspective and raises questions about heritage, identity and the consequences of industrial transformations.
Curated by curator Maurice Hermans, the exhibition includes images from the Wismans Collection made by Jan Wismans, one of the coordinators of the demolition supervisors of the Oranje Nassaumijnen. Between April 1975 and August 1978, he took pictures of the demolition work every week.