Me, You and Cultural Heritage

A culturally immersive bike ride into a slowly fading and hidden heritage site On a typically chilly spring morning in the northern province of Groningen, an enthusiastic group of students departed from the University of Groningen. They gathered in front of the statue of the famous Aletta Jacobs. Although they knew it, they paid little attention to the fact that their meeting point was also a heritage site, one among others in the Netherlands, which celebrates and remembers Jacobs’ irreplaceable contribution to suffrage and the furthering of women’s rights in the Netherlands. She was the first woman to study openly at a university in the Netherlands. The statue is easily accessible to all passersby and has a plaque below it giving more information about the monument, reinforcing its importance to Dutch cultural heritage. The irony here was that the groups’ destinations were in comparison quite the opposite. For some, it was a refreshing experience to change scenery and take the cla...