On the occasion of Bergamo Brescia – Capital of Culture 2023 and GEP 2023, the State Archives of Brescia opens a multimedia exhibition entitled “Between Fear, Devotion and Science. Places of Healing and Treatments from the 15th to the 19th Century in Brescia”.
The exhibition route was made possible thanks to funding from PNRR, Mission 1 Digitization, Innovation, Competitiveness and Culture – Component 3 Culture 4.0 (M1C3-3) – Action 1 “Cultural Heritage for the Next Generation” – Investment 1.2 “Removing physical and cognitive barriers in museums, libraries and archives to allow “With greater access and participation in culture” funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
The disbursement of this funding, which coincided with the 2023 BGBS Year of Culture whose theme was pandemics, made it possible to design not only an exhibition itinerary accessible even to non-experts, but also to completely rethink the exhibition hall as a multimedia space removing all kinds of barriers and facilitating Communicating historical and artistic content to the widest and most diverse audience possible. In fact, the exhibition will be integrated by an immersive display that narrates, through photographs and archival documents, the various epidemics that have occurred over the centuries in the Brescia region and the treatments that have been implemented for them.
The documents on display will be explored in depth – with high-resolution images, text cards and other multimedia content – via a touch screen located in a special space in the room, which will allow an in-depth analysis of the documents on display. Viewing and displaying objects that are not physically available for various reasons, such as for preservation reasons or because they belong to other archives. The special characteristics of the project – carried out in collaboration with the municipality, the Spedali Civili and the University of Brescia – make it possible to obtain significant improvements in terms of removing physical and cognitive barriers, and to provide this institute with cutting-edge technologies to overcome those barriers and the “lack of trust” that often accompanies archives and documentary heritage. Which you save.
Alongside the exhibition route, eight seminar meetings have been organised, taking the name “Caring Fridays”, which will start as of next September 30: each of them will be dedicated to a specific topic, first presented by the supervisor, and then developed by the scholars. The opening coincides with the European Heritage Days (#GEP 2023), dedicated this year to “Heritage InVita”, as a synonym for “living” heritage. Deborah Pirolli, Director of the State Archives of Brescia, Federico Manzoni, Deputy Mayor of the Municipality of Brescia, Gian Luca Fornari, Director of Public and Legal Affairs of ASST Spedali Civili of Brescia, and the curators of the route will participate in the exhibition. Opening.
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