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Aarhus

Posted on July 5, 2016 by
gracie-strasser

Aarhus

Our group has been in Aarhus now for about a week and a half. To get here we took a four hour bus ride over the North Sea from Copenhagen. We are staying in Aarhus University guesthouse accommodations and are meeting all kinds of new people. I have made many friends from all over, people studying anywhere from Harvard University to a university in Istanbul, Turkey!

I have been so busy with research since I have been here. Every day is a new adventure and I come home every night ready for sleep! I have been traveling to all different types of urban gardens and allotments, meeting people that manage and work in them. I have also been meeting with different architects, artists and professors for my independent research project. I cannot get over how much I am learning. So much information that I would never be able to learn in a classroom.

Gracie Strasser_Aarhus 3
One thing that really has changed my trip was our visit to Gellerup. Gellerup is a housing accommodation in Denmark. It is home to around 8,000 people consisting of both immigrants and longtime Danish residents. As we have been told, the general public of Aarhus would call this area the “ghetto” of the city. Some of the immigrants live here because they are fleeing violence in their home countries. The thing that was so impactful to me was the way the community was cared for. Denmark is a country that is stigmatized as a country of beauty, from the people to the buildings or the countryside, but this community looked as if no one had shown it any love. So many questions ran through my head while walking through the small town. Why doesn’t the rest of Aarhus try to integrate these people into their society more? Why are all of these people left on the outskirts of the city?

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Today we had our second stakeholder presentation in the Gellerup area. This means that after a few more pages of our situation analysis are written up we will have the weekend to ourselves. This will consist of art museums, beach trips and more interviews for my own independent research! Wish me luck!