The Museum as a Tool of Connection. The Case of the Diffused Museum of the University of Milan-Bicocca

The University of Milan-Bicocca is a recent institution, created in the last quarter of the twentieth century, placed in a new open campus in a completely renewed area in the Northern part of Milan, formerly occupied by huge industrial facilities. From its creation, the University has paid great attention to activate connections in this transformed territory with its old and new residents. Meanwhile, the University has started a process of connection between the different departments to improve the knowledge about tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and to share experiences, practices and research on it. In 2019, the University identified, through a diffused museum, an adequate tool to activate these connections among and outside the departments. The museum aims to improve collaborative practices among the different parts of the University (the departments but also the library and the archives) and to involve the community of ‘users’ of the territory such as; residents, students, personnel of the university, occasional visitors, in participative museum processes. The museum is currently in the primary stages of activation (digitalization of the collections, designing of the ‘diffused’ displays etc.) and it is hosting some temporary activities to experiment with different ways to connect University/collections/territory. In this presentation we will introduce some relevant actions in this direction and analyze the results.