Eine Hommage an die Geschichte des Mölltals

Salzburg artist Edith Sulzenbacher has designed the art wall with a work that delves deep into the history of the region. Despite weather-related delays, spontaneous support from actress Edith-Maria Lesnik made it possible to transform a concrete wall into an oversized canvas.

The centrepiece of the large-scale painting is the Teuchltal valley, a landscape that has been shaped by mining for generations. Here, ore and precious metals were laboriously extracted from the rock and further processed in smelting furnaces – a symbol of the industrial past and craft heritage of the Mölltal valley. The scene depicts the hard, physical labour of people who achieved great things with the simplest of means.

Behind the depiction of the work, fragments of old walls open up – a tribute to the traces of the ‘Alte Schmelz’ (old smelter) in Teuchl that are still visible today – and reveal the striking mountains and endless forests of the Mölltal valley. Nature is much more than just a backdrop here: it is part of history, part of life, part of identity. Without the wood from the surrounding forests and charcoal as fuel, the smelting furnaces would never have reached the temperatures necessary to separate metal from rock. Here, where people, nature and raw materials are inextricably linked, the region has been shaped over centuries.

But the artwork does not remain stuck in the past. It bridges the gap between the present and the future: the transition from traditional metalworking to modern heat supply is visible – symbolised by the stylised flames of a wood chip boiler, which are also found in the logo of the Penk district heating plant. Thus, the art wall not only reminds us of what was, but also tells us about what is and what may yet come.