About the event

On the 23rd of May 2025, the 26th Cemeteries Colloquium will take place as a live meeting from 08:45 to 17:15 (GMT) in the Church Lane Building on the University of York’s West campus.

The Colloquium, organized by the Cemetery Research Group (CRG), has developed into an essential forum for the discussion of new and emerging cemetery scholarship and is multi-disciplinary, accepting papers from across the humanities and social sciences. The event has a strong emphasis on discussion, and its international and interdisciplinary nature makes the meeting particularly thought-provoking.

Programme and tickets

The organisers are pleased to share the full programme for the event, which can be accessed HERE. In addition to the schedule, the programme includes key information about the colloquium as well as abstracts of the presentations.

Tickets for the event are already available on Eventbrite (search for 26th Cemeteries Colloquium).
Accommodation is not included in the colloquium fee.

For any additional questions, please contact Dr Julie Rugg at julie.rugg@york.ac.uk.

Note: In addition to the in-person meeting in May, the Cemetery Research Group will also host a second, fully online event in November. Further details will be published in due course.

*Photo source: www.cemeteryresearch.org

23-24 May 2025

Be the first bird - Bird listening at St. Elisabeth II

• About the event: A nature education program for families, including an overnight stay.
• Schedule: Friday, 23 May at 17:00 to Saturday, 24 May at 08:00
• Location: Cemetery Chapel of St. Elisabeth II
• Organizer: Evangelical Cemetery Association of Berlin City Center
• More information: https://evfbs.de/

23 May 2025

JAMES TURRELL - Light Art Presentation

• About the event: An art exhibition accompanied by an introductory lecture in German and English, held from Friday to Sunday at sunset (start times vary).
• Schedule: Friday, 23 May at 20:45
• Location: Dorotheenstädt Cemetery I
• Organizer: Evangelical Cemetery Association of Berlin City Center
• More information: https://evfbs.de/

24 May 2025

For all eternity - A tour of the Dorotheenstädt Cemetery

• About the event: A guided tour exploring the history and significance of one of Berlin’s most renowned cemeteries.
• Schedule: Saturday, 24 May from 11:00 to 13:00
• Location: Dorotheenstädt Cemetery I
• Organizer: Evangelical Cemetery Association of Berlin City Center
• More information: https://evfbs.de/

30-31 May 2025

Be the first bird - Bird listening at St. Elisabeth II

• About the event: A nature education program for families, including an overnight stay.
• Schedule: Friday, 30 May at 17:00 to Saturday, 31 May at 08:00 
• Location: Cemetery Chapel of St. Elisabeth II
• Organizer: Evangelical Cemetery Association of Berlin City Center
• More information: https://evfbs.de/

31 May 2025

JAMES TURRELL - Light Art Presentation

• About the event: An art exhibition accompanied by an introductory lecture in German and English, held from Friday to Sunday at sunset (start times vary).
• Schedule: Saturday, 31 May at 20:45
• Location: Dorotheenstädt Cemetery I
• Organizer: Evangelical Cemetery Association of Berlin City Center
• More information: https://evfbs.de/

1 June 2025

Guided tour of the Dorotheenstädt Cemetery

• About the event: Discover the stories and resting places of notable figures on a guided tour through this historic cemetery.
• Schedule: Sunday, 1 June at 15:00
• Location: Dorotheenstädt Cemetery I
• Organizer: Evangelical Cemetery Association of Berlin City Center
• More information: https://evfbs.de/

More to come

Additional events are published on the website of the Evangelical Cemetery Association of Berlin City Center: https://evfbs.de.

This year, April 25th carries special significance. Not only because it's the 80th anniversary of Italy's Liberation from Nazi-fascism, but also because it's a symbolic date marking the end of the Second World War. Today, several armed conflicts are still ongoing, even not too far from our country, which oblige us to reflect on the Resistance, its protagonists, and the enduring meaning of the Liberation.

The 2025 project of the Working Group for the Historical-Artistic and Touristic Valorization of Italian Public Cemeteries of Utilitalia SEFIT, aims to highlight some of the monuments and tombs that tell the story of the Liberation inside and outside cemetery walls. This initiative is presented through a digital Google Maps itinerary titled "1945–2025: Monuments and Tombs Tell the Story of the Liberation", accessible HERE.

*Photo: Verano cemetery - Sepolcreto dei caduti nella lotta per la Liberazione, © Daniele.Brundu, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

New Flower Bed

As part of this year's Week of Discovering European Cemeteries and the Gardens of 80 project, a new flower bed will be created at the World War II memorial, a frequently visited part of the Fiumei Road Cemetery. The composition, made of  flowers in two colors, will symbolize 80 years of peace following the end of World War II.

Live Image

On May 9, 2025, a special event will take place at Fiumei Road Cemetery, where students will come together to create a powerful visual message of unity and hope. Dressed in identical white T-shirts, they will form the word “PEACE” around the newly planted flower bed in a coordinated human formation flashmob. This formation will be recorded by a drone. The footage will be later enhanced with a musical background and shared publicly as a meaningful message of peace.

Message of Peace

Mr. Gábor Móczár, General Director of the Hungarian National Heritage Institute, will take a short walk through the newly planted tree alley at Fiumei Road Cemetery, which consists of nearly 80 trees, and will share his message of peace in a brief speech. The video will launch by May 9, 2025.

Guided Walk

A special guided walk entitled "The Struggle of Our Ancestors Is Transformed into Peace Through Remembrance" will take place at the Fiumei Road Cemetery, commemorating 80 years since the end of the Second World War. During the programme, we will explore life’s works of the writers, poets, and visual artists buried here, seeking to understand how the themes of war and peace appear in their creative legacy.

Highlights of the walk include:

• The Memorial to the Hungarian Victims of World War II
• Poets Mihály Babits and Miklós Radnóti
• Sculptor György Zala and painter Jenő Barcsay
• Composer Ferenc Erkel

Additional information

The exact schedule of events and further details will follow. For any questions, please contact István Kovács at istvan.kovacs@nori.gov.hu.

Cemeteries as cultural spaces

Cemeteries are transforming into vibrant cultural spaces that bring together history, heritage, and community. Far from being places of silence alone, they host a wide variety of public activities that invite reflection, discovery, and participation. These events reflect a growing awareness of the role cemeteries play not only as places of remembrance but also as shared cultural landscapes. They contribute to making heritage more accessible and meaningful to all generations.

Spring events at Brussels Cemeteries

This spring, cemeteries across Brussels are hosting a variety of events that highlight the significance of these spaces. Discover the full overview of activities in the latest edition of Tafofiel, the official publication of the Epitaaf association.

You can download Tafofiel 66 (in Dutch) HERE.

Cemeteries as gardens

Cemeteries are often overlooked as green spaces, yet, in many ways, they are gardens in their own right—places where nature, memory, and culture intertwine. Landscaped with care, shaped by history, and rich in symbolism, cemeteries form serene environments for reflection, remembrance, and discovery.

In this context, we are pleased to forward the invitation from APGI - Associazione Parchi e Giardini d'Italia to participate in the "Appuntamento in Giardino" initiative (English: Appointment in the Garden), which this year beautifully aligns with the ASCE Week of Discovering European Cemeteries, both in theme and timing.

About the "Appuntamento in Giardino" initiative

Designed as a garden celebration, the event invites the general public to rediscover Italy’s gardens as living cultural heritage through a variety of events and activities. Participation is open to all gardens, whether historic or contemporary, that have historical, artistic, landscape, or botanical significance.

Held in collaboration with Rendez-vous aux Jardins, this initiative will take place simultaneously in numerous European countries.

For more information about the initiative, click HERE or visit the website www.apgi.it.

Theme: Gardens of stones, stones of the garden

Year after year, the chosen theme invites the public to rediscover the universe of the garden through a new perspective. This year’s theme for the "Appuntamento in Giardino" initiative is Gardens of Stones, Stones of the Garden.

Please note that aligning with the proposed theme is not mandatory for the design of proposed activities. You can animate the days with a wide variety of events, including guided tours, conferences, meetings with owners, gardeners, and botanists, gardening lessons, workshops for children, demonstrations, concerts, performances, exhibitions, tastings, night openings, and more.

How to participate

Each garden can choose one or more days to participate in the initiative (Saturday, 7 June; Sunday, 8 June; or both days).

Registrations will be open until the 1st of May 2025. You can sign up your garden HERE.

For any questions, please contact appuntamentoingiardino@apgi.it.

Event date and locations

This year's AGM and Conference will take place from 4 to 6 September 2025 in Dresden, Germany.

The event will take place in the Kulturrathaus – a cultural center located at Königstraße 15, 01097 Dresden, Germany.

Conference theme

This year ASCE’s annual conference will focus on the theme "Future through Remembrance". Against the background of the end of World War II we want to focus on communication and interaction. You can find all the details HERE.

Accommodation suggestions

Participants are responsible for arranging their own accommodation for the AGM. To make this process as easy as possible, we have prepared a list of recommended hotels near the event venue. The list is available at the link below, where you can also make your reservation.

Nonetheless, staying at one of these hotels is not required. You are free to use booking platforms to find other accommodation options that better suit your needs.

➤ MAKE YOUR RESERVATION

Conference theme: Future through Remembrance

This year ASCE’s annual conference will focus on the theme "Future through Remembrance", a challenging subject for all the participants in the cemetery's heritage field. Against the background of the end of World War II we want to focus on communication and interaction.

• Get started transforming stories from your cemetery.
• Get your cemetery story told.
• Use IT and social media.
• Not get lost in your cemetery story archive.
• Find partners for your storytelling project.
• Finance your cemetery art or film project.
• Be strong in realizing your cemetery story project against all odds.

For more information about the content and about proposed ideas for the authors please find attached the link to a project on the victims of violence and war in Dresden’s cemeteries that has just been published by rhetorical City of Dresden: https://www.dresdner-friedhoefe.de.

Conference dates and location

The Conference will take place on Friday and Saturday, September 5-6, 2025, in Dresden, Germany.
The venue and event program will be released in the following weeks.

Proposals

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words summarising your intended paper no later than Monday, May 5, 2025, by using the following form.

FORM FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS

Accepted authors will be notified by June 15, 2025.

Conference papers

Presentations should last no longer than 15 minutes, excluding questions.

We are seeking speakers with practical knowledge or experience who can communicate interesting and diverse presentations to the international audience.

The conference language is English. 

Editorial board

• Prof. Thomas Kübler, phd
• Ian Dungavell, phd
• Andreea Pop, phd
• Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, phd

Further information

For any questions, please contact Andreea Pop at andreea@significantcemeteries.org.

The Feriköy Protestant Cemetery Initiative has updated its website with fresh content about the cemetery and the Initiative’s efforts to preserve and promote it for more than half a decade. Besides presenting six years of activities and outreach, the site contains publications and other resources about the cemetery. 

Included among the items is the latest edition of the Initiative’s bulletin, The Ledger, published in December 2024. Entering its fifth year in 2025, the bulletin not only reports current happenings but also features articles about the cemetery's inhabitants and history, highlighting new information as it comes to light.

Inquiries about the Feriköy Protestant Cemetery Initiative and its projects can be sent to info@ferikoycemetery.org. Correspondence about The Ledger can be addressed to the editor bdjohnson62@gmail.com.

About the book

The book "Cementerios y migraciones: Memorias, espacios funerarios y otras historias de la provincia de Buenos Aires" by Celeste Castiglione delves into the history of migration in the province of Buenos Aires by examining the experience of death far from one’s homeland. 

Through the lens of cemeteries, she explores these spaces as unique sites where memory, identity, and cultural influences converge. These burial grounds serve as witnesses to social dynamics, revealing patterns, ruptures, and continuities that shape collective history.

Find out more at www.edunpaz.unpaz.edu.ar

About the book

We are pleased to announce the publication of a comprehensive new work, Florence's English Cemetery, 1827-1877: Thunders of White Silence, by Julia Bolton Holloway, the custodian of the English Cemetery in Florence for over two decades.

This 927-page volume, with a 53-page index, meticulously catalogs all existing and lost tombs of the English Cemetery in Florence (which is part of the Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe), drawing from extensive archival records. The final chapter details the restoration of the cemetery and its beautiful iris garden—Florence's lily—a project carried out by Romanian Roma in Florence, who were taught literacy skills and the art of incising inscriptions on marble.

Book purchase

The book is available through Cambridge University Press, with a 25% discount for registered users. All royalties from the book will support the ongoing preservation of the cemetery.

About the event

The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (Via Orsanmichele 4, 50123 Firenze, Italy) will host the XIth City and Book International Conference on Saturday, 26 April 2025.

The event will be conducted both in person and via Zoom, ensuring accessibility for a global audience.

Call for papers

For more information, including guidelines for presentation submissions and registration details, please contact Julia Bolton Holloway, president of the Aureo Anello Association, at juliananchoress@gmail.com.

As customary, the proceedings will be published on the Aureo Anello Association website.

A collection of presentations

"Cimiteri e dintorni. Uno spazio di dialogo tra generazioni" is a newly published book, developed through the collaboration of ASCE members from Turin and the University of Turin.

The book was created following the international conference "Around Cemeteries: a space of dialogue across generations and cultures," which was held in Turin on May 30 and 31, 2023. The conference brought together scholars, professionals, and researchers from various fields to discuss cemeteries as places of cultural exchange, historical reflection, and intergenerational dialogue. The presentations from this event have now been compiled into this volume, offering valuable insights into the role of cemeteries in our societies.

Contents of the book

Cimiteri e dintorni explores cemeteries not just as places of remembrance but also as spaces that foster dialogue between generations and cultures. It examines how cemeteries can serve as educational tools, heritage sites, and venues for public engagement. By addressing topics such as memory, identity, artistic expression, and social transformation, the book provides a comprehensive perspective on the significance of cemeteries in contemporary society.

Book purchase

The book was edited by Esterino Adami, Antonella Amatuzzi, and Laura Ramello and published by Neos Edizioni. It is available in Italian and can be purchased on Amazon Italy.

About the event

On the 23rd of May 2025, the 26th Cemeteries Colloquium will take place as a live meeting in York, United Kingdom.

The Colloquium, organized by the Cemetery Research Group (CRG), has developed into an essential forum for the discussion of new and emerging cemetery scholarship and is multi-disciplinary, accepting papers from across the humanities and social sciences. The event has a strong emphasis on discussion, and its international and interdisciplinary nature makes the meeting particularly thought-provoking.

Call for papers

Anyone who would like to participate is invited to submit their presentation abstract of no more than 250 words by using the submission portal at the Cemetery Research Group website.

The deadline for abstract submission is 2nd May 2025.

For any additional questions please contact Dr Julie Rugg at julie.rugg@york.ac.uk.

Note: In addition to the in-person meeting in May, the Cemetery Research Group will also host a second, entirely online event in November. A separate call for papers for this event will be issued later this year.

Updates and publications

The Cemetery Research Group bibliography has been updated with new material from 2024, including additional references to older sources.

Routledge has also released the latest edition in the Routledge International Focus on Death and Funeral Practices series. Listen to Hannah Gould discuss Death and Funeral Practices in Japan on the New Books Network podcast.

*Photo source: www.cemeteryresearch.org

About the AGM and Conference

Each year, the Annual General Meeting attracts over 100 cemetery academics, artists and professionals from all over Europe. It generates a lot of public attention and through the conference helps expose important topics on cemetery's history, art, architecture, cultural heritage, sustainability, management, and future trends.

AGM 2025 in Dresden

After 20 years, the ASCE Annual General Meeting and Conference will once again be held in Germany, this time in the historic and vibrant city of Dresden.

Mark your calendars from 4 to 6 September 2025, and join us for an inspiring program filled with engaging discussions, cultural highlights, and meaningful networking opportunities.

A call for papers, as well as all the details about the event program, accommodation, and other logistics, will be released in the coming months, so don't forget to check our website for updates.

We look forward to seeing you in September, at the AGM 2025.

ASCE presidency

Discover Dresden

Dear friends and colleagues, cemetery travellers.

You know how time stops when you visit the cemetery. All the rush of the outside world and conflicting thoughts become distant. Monuments reveal the stories of human love, devotion and dedication to enjoy life together. Cemetery traveller is a peaceful traveller. One that will always be careful about where she walks, what he eats and how she talks. Thoughtful about nature and all living beings. Mindful about the importance of preserving the heritage resting in cemeteries.

This is why we have to keep our initiative of Significant cemeteries for sustainable Europe. That is why in 2025 our focus will be on United nations goal 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions.

Because humanity needs peace to sustain. More than ever it will be important for all our members and partners to join efforts. Invite people to cemeteries. Let them experience the feelings when time stops. When all the rush of the outside world and conflicting thoughts become distant.

Convince humanity to become cemetery travellers. Preserve and protect the heritage of humanity resting in cemeteries.

The ASCE presidency wishes you peaceful holidays and 2025.

Memorial evening for Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

The "Quo Vadis Fundamentum" initiative, launched in 2022, aims to commemorate remarkable individuals who made significant contributions to humanity through memorial evenings at the Eastern Cemetery in Innsbruck.

Following the successful memorial evenings for Edith Stein in 2022 and Charlie Chaplin in 2023, this year's event honored the renowned writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach.

The evening attracted many attendees, who were captivated by the performances of actresses Bernadette Abendstein and Petra Knoflach. They brought Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's words to life through powerful readings of her works. The readings were beautifully enhanced by Michael Cede's flute performance, which created an atmosphere of inspiration and reflection.

Some of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's quotes shared during the event included:

• "If everyone would help each other, everyone would be helped."
• "Know, those who preach you hate will not save you."
• "A judgement is easier to refute, a prejudice never."
• "The right of the stronger is the greatest wrong."
• "You can’t inspire the mindless, but you can fantasize them."
• "You have to do good so that it will be in the world."

Photos of the event