GRAZ.- How can we even recognize past violence for what it was if we remain at a distance from its present-day forms?

Aflenz Memorial at the site of a former subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp near Leibnitz, Styria, has its starting point in the absence of visible traces of the camp and remembrance. After 1945, agricultural cultivation concealed the camp’s remains. Conceived as a walkable landscape, the memorial makes the camp’s dimensions tangible. Paths trace its former boundaries; the roll-call square and a prisoner barrack have been marked. The paths also recall guided tours organized by the municipality of Wagna, which kept the memory of the forgotten camp alive over many years.

The Aflenz concentration camp was established in 1944. Its underground quarries were used to protect the armaments production from air raids. More than 900 men were subjected to forced labor under extreme conditions; at least 81 named prisoners died at the site.

The project is grounded in Investigative Memorialization, a concept coined by artist Milica Tomić to describe a non-commemorative, transdisciplinary and collective approach to memorialization. Aflenz Memorial distances itself from forced and frozen reconciliations between opposing sides, recognizing that the memorialization of a site cannot be reduced to a static statement of facts. The memorial emerges through investigation, enabling its continuation as a subject of inquiry: What knowledge does it produce? Who participates? What possibilities for action does it provide? In Aflenz, the excavation, sampling and exhibition of soil, the tracing of trajectories, as well as reading, planting and preservation establish new relations between people, seeds, soil and history. Encounters between disciplines and practices transform the concept itself, while the findings prompt inquiry into how knowledge is produced and used.

The soil is an archive, a bearer of memory and an active participant. Archaeobotanical research conducted on the site has identified the seeds of mustard, berries, tobacco and grains, reintroduced through a multi-year crop rotation and planting scheme. Repeated corn planting marks the decades in which cultivation covered historical traces. The land remains active, its produce harvested by the municipality; the same vegetation that once obscured this history now carries it. Seasonal change and cultivation make remembrance an ongoing process.

Milica Tomić (b. 1960, Belgrade) lives and works in Graz, Vienna and Belgrade. Her work brings repressed social realities to light, opening discussions of power, violence and remembrance. A founding member of Grupa Spomenik/Monument Group (2002–2015) and Four Faces of Omarska (2010–2015), she challenges dominant historical narratives and opens spaces for collective engagement.

Following Werner Fenz’s 2013 invitation, the project developed through transdisciplinary collaboration with Dubravka Sekulić, Ana Bezić, Philipp Sattler, Đurđa Obradović, Bernhard Schrettle, Bertrand Perz, David Kurzweil, Ekaterina Degot and David Riff (steirischer herbst); learning from Franz Trampusch and Peter Stradner. Landscape architects atelier le balto and studio boden played a defining role in shaping the memorial’s final form.

Commissioned by: Institute for Art in Public Space Styria, Director: Gabriele Mackert
Location: Retzneierstraße, 8435 Wagna-Aflenz