Coffee meeting at the cemetery

In a corner of Denmark's largest cemetery lies a small piece of Greenland that few people probably know about. At least the bus driver had a hard time finding the Greenlandic section when he drove the participants in Sunday's service in the Church of the Holy Spirit on Strøget to the Vestre cemetery in Copenhagen's southwest quarter. The marking of an extensive beautification of the cemetery with the Greenlandic graves was delayed, but once it got underway, it was a beautiful and atmospheric experience for the many participants.

Landscape architect Lone van Deurs, who is the driving force behind the beautification, and Provost of the Central Greenland Provost Maannguaq Dalager, who administers the section, spoke while the Greenlandic House in Copenhagen held a coffee meeting between the gravestones. The weather was beautiful, and a predicted cloudburst over the capital only opened its floodgates on Sunday evening.

– It is my hope that the Greenlandic cemetery will continue to be a place of peace and space for contemplation and reflection. A place that connects our countries and different cultures. A place where there is room to sit down and let the past, present and future merge, says Lone van Deurs.

The cemetery in Copenhagen is home to the burials of Greenlanders and Danes with ties to Greenland.

The Heaven Gate connects

The renovation has left its mark.

The graves are surrounded by large stones made of the mineral anorthorsite, which the mining company Lumina Sustainable Materials has quarried in Kangerlussuaq and which the shipping company Royal Arctic Line has shipped to Denmark.

Arctic plants such as bluebells, thyme and saxifrage have been planted between the stones. The Greenlandic section consists of two sections from 1952 and 1970s, which are connected by a sky gate.

– The graves are now planned so that they are no longer in long straight rows and columns, but rather scattered and half-hidden in low-growing grasses, says Lone van Deurs.

The beautification costs 1.3 million kroner, granted by the A. P. Møller Foundation and the Danish state.