BRUSSELS – One hundred and one years of history. To be celebrated in Brussels. The city, which at least in Europe, is the most concrete symbol of barriers and demolished walls. The Catholic University of the Sacred Heart celebrates its anniversary in the Belgian capital with a show entitled “Stories of divided humanity: from the Chinese wall to Banksy”. The opera is staged at the Italian Cultural Institute. A show that “touches not only reason but also emotion and which serves to stimulate both critical knowledge and ethical sensitivity”, underlined the rector of the Cattolica Franco Anelli. Because the wall, Anelli recalled again, is a historical symbol that goes from that of Jericho to that of Bansky, passing through the medieval ones: “This is why we chose Brussels, a symbolic place for the removal of internal borders”.
The show was conceived by Mario Colombo, Full Professor of Political Institutions at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart where he also teaches Contemporary History, and is accompanied by drawings by Michele Tranquillini.
In this “History Telling”, the central idea is to teach and transmit historical knowledge even outside the academy with innovative narrative methods, through a contamination of oral narration with music, videos, drawings and other artistic forms. The ultimate goal is to challenge the cliché that “history is boring”, also emotionally involving a wide audience, without ever sacrificing scientific rigour.
In short, the walls become speaking subjects. At the end of the last century, History had imagined that they could collapse. Along with the divisions. But the news has told us and is telling us different destinies.
On this occasion, the ex students of the Cattolica who are now working in Brussels were invited. “They are lookouts – said Anelli – who can help us do our job well by offering new perspectives on the front of modernization through their skills and knowledge”. And also a way to strengthen relations with the European institutions. Increasingly central to the choices of the country and in the orientations of university teaching.