Logo Le Roy tuin, de ecokathedraal van Heerenveen

Ecocathedralen: waar plant, dier en mens samenwerken...
... en waar ruimte de tijd krijgt, en tijd de ruimte

Now on display in Hamburg: "We make years out of minutes" by Lina Lapelytė

Exhibition as a process: visitors stack 400,000 blocks and participate in the creation process of this exhibition (photo: Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart)
Exhibition as a process: visitors stack 400,000 blocks and participate in the creation process of this exhibition (photo: Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart)

In the impressive Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, an exhibition is emerging (!) from 30 April 2026 to 10 January 2027 that you do not just view, but experience.

With “We Make Years Out of Minutes,” artist Lina Lapelytė invites you into a constantly changing landscape of no fewer than 400,000 wooden blocks. What begins as a floor full of loose elements grows—through hands, voices, and movement—into temporary architectures, hills, and structures that disappear just as quickly.

This installation is not a static artwork, but a collective process. Visitors and performers build together, stack, rearrange, and dismantle. Voices fill the space with sung texts based on poetry about love, loss, hope, and community. In this way, a sensory experience is created in which time becomes tangible: minutes become hours, hours become years.

Ecocathedral

Even though nature is excluded from this process, and it concerns a temporary artwork, the idea nevertheless touches upon the principle of the ecocathedral, as developed by Louis Le Roy . There, too, everything revolves around the patient stacking of material – stone by stone – without a predetermined final image. Just as in Lapelytė's work, meaning arises not from control, but from time, repetition, and engagement. The process is the artwork. What is built up today can disappear or transform tomorrow.

Where Le Roy works with stones in a landscape that develops over decades, Lapelytė creates an accelerated snapshot of time: an ecocathedral at the pace of man. Here, you see in a few hours what normally takes years. It makes palpable how collective actions, however small, accumulate into something greater – a community, a memory, a monument.

“We Make Years Out of Minutes” is therefore more than an exhibition. It is an invitation to participate, to experience time differently, and to realize that every action – no matter how small – is part of a larger whole. Just as in the ecocathedral, it is not the end result that counts, but the continuous becoming.

A visit to this exhibition is an experience that continues to resonate: in your head, in your hands, and perhaps even in how you view time itself.

For more information, visit the website of Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart

we make years out of hours hamburg Lina Lapelyte Lina Lapelytė (photo: Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart)

we make years out of hours hamburg stacking ecocathedral 01 Visitors are an active part of the exhibition "We make years out of hours". (photo: Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart)

 

we make years out of hours hamburg stacking ecocathedral 03

we make years out of hours hamburg stacking ecocathedral 04

Want to help out?

Would you like to work as a volunteer on the Heerenveen ecocathedral? You can!
Get in touch , and we'll see what you like and what you can do.
Or come by sometime on a Wednesday morning. We are often working there then.

Agenda

31 Oct 02026;
13:00 - 16:30
TIJD-symposium 02026

The stage is yours!

Located in the Le Roy Garden is a small, atmospheric open-air theatre with a capacity of approximately 80 visitors. It is ideal for staging small performances of singing, recitation, music, theatre... Email or call us and inquire about the possibilities.

thumb open-air theater le roy garden

Guided tour or lecture on ecocathedrals?

Would you like a guided tour of the Le Roy Garden, or a lecture on ecocathedrals? Please contact us. You can do so by email or by phone at 06-24573020 .

Donate stones?

Do you have any stones left over and would you like to donate them to the Le Roy garden? Please contact us first, so you can immediately find out whether (and if so, where) you can bring the stones. Bringing (or collecting) material without prior notice is therefore not permitted.

tiles NK tile removing in ecocathedral Heerenveen

 

See also:

Other long-term art projects

Various artists have been inspired in one way or another by the long term, also known as cathedral thinking. A number of interesting examples:

  1. The Letters of Utrecht (02000 - as long as there are Saturdays): a poem that is written letter by letter every Saturday in the city center of Utrecht using stones.
  2. The Time Pyramid of Manfred Laber in Wemdinge, Germany
  3. The Future Library (02014 - 02114) of Katie Paterson in Oslo, Denmark.
  4. The Longplayer at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London, a musical piece that lasts 100 years and has been playing since January 1, 2000.
  5. The Tropfenstein machine (01996–02496) with which a stalactite is made in a museum in Hamburg.

" For a proper understanding of what is written, it must always be borne in mind that when nature is mentioned, natural processes are *always* meant, but never nature in its temporary form ." Louis G. Le Roy ( 1924 - 2012 )

" When we build, let us remember that we are building for eternity. Let it not be for present pleasure, nor for present use only; let it be such a work that our descendants will be grateful to us for it ." John Ruskin (1819–1900)