“Dissonant Legacies”: A New Virtual Exhibition Rethinking University Heritage

The Una Europa Alliance has launched its third virtual exhibition, “Dissonant Legacies: Engaging with Difficult University Heritage”, a digital journey hosted on the Unveiling University Heritage in the Digital Era platform. The exhibition invites viewers to engage with the most challenging elements of Europe’s academic history, addressing issues such as colonialism, totalitarian regimes, discriminatory practices and museum approaches.

The exhibition is curated by Professor Patrizia Battilani, from the Department of Economics, and Dr Filippo Marco Espinoza, researcher in the Department of Interpreting and Translation and teaching collaborator in the Department of Economics at the University of Bologna. Together, the curators have led a collective, transnational effort to critically examine the difficult legacies preserved in university archives, museums, libraries, botanical gardens and collections.

Dissonant heritage: reading what history prefers to forget

European universities have contributed to the development of knowledge for centuries, yet they have also been involved – at times directly – in dynamics linked to colonialism, discriminatory policies and authoritarian regimes. Objects, artefacts and documents bearing witness to these complex stories form what is now termed “dissonant heritage”: materials that challenge the present and call for new ways of being interpreted and narrated.

Dissonant Legacies explores precisely these shadowed areas, offering a pathway that goes beyond displaying objects and instead focuses on how they are interpreted, presented and made accessible to contemporary audiences.

A participatory process: shared narratives and good practices

The exhibition is the result of a collective endeavour involving numerous research groups across the Una Europa universities. The outcome is a mosaic of stories and curatorial perspectives ranging from the memory of totalitarian regimes to the decolonisation of collections, from the ethical management of human remains to the revaluation of “silent” objects without clear provenance but rich in critical significance.

This international exchange has made it possible to share good practices, develop new forms of mediation and identify strategies to make university heritage more transparent, inclusive and critically informed.

A digital platform for a shared memory

With this third exhibition, the Una Europa Alliance reinforces its vision of university heritage not as a static set of testimonies, but as a dynamic resource requiring continual reinterpretation. Dissonant Legacies invites viewers to recognise historical dissonance as an opportunity for reflection and awareness, laying the foundation for new forms of cultural and academic participation.

The exhibition is now available on the Unveiling University Heritage in the Digital Era platform, which already hosts the two previous exhibitions created by the Alliance.