Public Engagement 2026-27

Curated by Chiara Rabbiosi and Ginevra Montefusco, the Questioning Food, Mobilities, and Development exhibition will open on February 6 at 09.30 am and will be open to the public until February 8, 2026 at the Museum of Geography, Palazzo Wollemborg, Via del Santo 26, Padova.

Representing the culmination of the Space, Place, and Mobility course unit, this exhibition showcases a rich and creative learning journey developed in collaboration with students from the Local Development and Mobility Studies Master’s programmes. It is also connected to the activities of the Food Communities Empowerment research group and forms part of the activities conducted within the Post-development Geographies of Local Food Systems: Community-Based Networks Addressing Food Insecurity PRIN 2022 PNRR project, which is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

Starting from the core geographical concepts of space, place and scale, the exhibition progressively explores the multiple meanings of food ‘on the move’, including the material, symbolic, political and relational aspects. Designed as a pedagogical experiment, the exhibition is a result of an educational training integrating theoretical frameworks, empirical case studies, and creative experimentation.

The exhibition format translates this research and teaching endeavour into an open, participatory experience, demonstrating how creative methodologies can foster learning by doing while engaging wider audiences beyond the classroom and boosting the university’s societal impact.

On Thursday, January 15th, concluding the international conference “Urban Mobility Cultures: Creative and Narrative Approaches to Moving in the City”, organized by the DiSSGeA department of the University of Padua in collaboration with the Mobility and the Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies, the museum hosted the pre-vernissage of the exhibition Dance Moves. Walking and drawing in the city, by artist-researcher Tânia A. Cardoso and MoHu member Giada Peterle.

The exhibition hosted several works by illustrator and urban planner Tânia Alexandra Cardoso, who explores the poetics of everyday life, using graphic art to question and co-create the urban environment.

The comic story Dance Moves emerges from an interdisciplinary dialogue between architecture, geography, urban studies, and graphic languages, developed over the years through creative workshops, conferences, and jointly conducted lessons. However, it is primarily the most structured outcome of the “walkshop” titled Walking with the city, a walking workshop organized in April 2025 to engage students from the University of Padua, particularly those from the Master’s Degree Course in Landscape Sciences.

This event, and more generally the conference, are part of the WALC – Walking Landscapes of Urban Cultures research project, which involved the Universities of Bologna, Padua, and Milan Bicocca.

The exhibition will be open from 16 Jan 2026 to 15 Feb 2026.