The Province of Groningen is one of the MOMAr partners based in the Netherlands. In this article the progress of the Action Plan will be sketched and the project leader, Anne-Marie Goudzwaard, of the Heritage Lab in Groningen will introduce herself.
In the Action Plan of the Province of Groningen the project 'Heritage Lab' was presented to aim to connect different stakeholders within the heritage sector: market parties, the educational system, and the different layers of governments. All these stakeholders have an immense interest in a healthy and well-functioning heritage sector. The goal of the Heritage Lab is to bring these parties together, sharing knowledge, experimenting, and enhancing the interest of students to follow a career in the heritage sector.
The current status of the Heritage Lab
Since phase 2 of MOMAr started in July 2022, we have worked on implementing the ideas of the Heritage Lab and concretizing the idea of a physical location where these meetings between different parties will take place. Because of the many different parties involved we decided to look for a project leader to help bring the project further.
Introduction Anne-Marie Goudzwaard
Anne-Marie Goudzwaard is the new project leader of the Heritage Lab. She is well rounded and experienced in the heritage sector with a creative point of view.
'Since my studies at the Art Academy and Technical University of Delft, I have developed a fascination on the role of (immaterial) heritage in future plans based on knowledge from the past. Thanks to the combination of these studies my approach as a project leader is always; dream, then do!'.
Heritage stands for everything we inherit from previous generations and what we feel is necessary to preserve for future generations. The duality in the heritage sector, preservation and development, demands patience and a balanced view on the situation. But also, courage and willpower are necessary in the exploration of opportunities and potential possibilities in the future. The Heritage Lab is a physical place where the conversation and experiments take place, where questions regarding heritage and the sector will be translated into practical learning grounds.
We're starting in February with the first workshop where the different bricks needed to build up the Heritage Lab will be discussed. Where knowledge will be shared, participants will be inspired, experiments will be had and together develop the heritage sector even further. Each workshop will be defined on a specific theme with different interactive assignments.
It’s important that the development and content of the Heritage Lab is based on the needs and questions from the actors in heritage sector. We're in this together and everyone has their own part to play. Only in unisons and when conferring together, we can learn what really is innovative and needed in Groningen's heritage sector. This is how the Heritage Lab can grow each year. Where there is room for knowledge, intuition, science and practice, ambitions and feasibility. Like Einstein said, logic will get you from A to B, but imagination will take you everywhere.
The importance of MOMAr
The project of MOMAr had its ups and downs with the covid pandemic and the additional travel restrictions as the deepest low and the exchanges in the first half 2022 as the highest up. These exchanges are exactly where the power of MOMAr lies; regions proudly showing casing their good practices and openly sharing their failed practices and how they've learned from them. We've learned a lot from each other in our multiple online seminars, but meeting face to face and seeing in real life why a heritage site is so special for the partners is inspiring and motivating.
In our exchanges multiple subjects were discussed, may it be problems of regions trying to bring back the migration of young inhabitants or the importance of preserving local traditions. I think every exchange brought some clarification for each partner on how to tackle problems concerning rural regions and heritage for that matter. And for us that's the importance of MOMAr; exchanging experiences no matter how different the culture or governing system, there are always things you can learn from each other.
