The six-decade trajectory of Unicamp goes beyond classrooms, laboratories and research institutes. It was also written in the streets and neighborhoods of Campinas, Limeira and Piracicaba, cities that welcomed its campuses and that, over time, grew and transformed along with the University. It is this shared journey that the exhibition 60 years of Unicamp: three cities, one history , opened this Thursday (6) at the City Museum – Glass House, proposes to revisit.
The exhibition, which concludes in Campinas a circuit that began in Piracicaba in December 2025 and also passed through Limeira, is part of the celebrations of the University's 60th anniversary and can be visited free of charge until September 30th.
At the opening of the exhibition, the general coordinator of Unicamp, Fernando Coelho, representing the rector Paulo Cesar Montagner, highlighted precisely the transformative power exerted by a public university on the territories where it is established. For him, looking at the institution's six decades also means recovering the University's impact on the generation of knowledge, the quality of life, and the development of cities.
“When the university arrives, it has an absolutely gigantic transformative power. We see this clearly everywhere it has established itself,” Coelho emphasized. According to the general coordinator, revisiting this past also allows us to project the future and think about how the University can continue contributing to the consolidation of the cities where it is present as centers for knowledge generation.
A city within cities.
Photographs, historical documents, maps, architectural plans, postcards, and other visual materials help to tell this story. More than reconstructing the internal history of the University, the exhibition seeks to show how its establishment accompanied urban, economic, and social transformations in the three cities.
One of the exhibition's curators, Marcos Tognon, a professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH), summarizes the concept in an image: "Our exhibition is a city within cities." Tognon explains that the establishment of the campuses created new urban centers and modified the way the surrounding cities began to organize and develop.
More than following a chronological order, the exhibition organizes the narrative based on the University's relationship with the territories where it was established. To construct this history, the curators researched the historical cartography of the three cities and examined photographic archives, documents, and private collections. Among the sources consulted are materials from the Unicamp Memory Center (CMU), the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS) of Campinas, and private collections, such as that of Monsignor Jamil Nassif Abib, from Piracicaba, which holds approximately 300 postcards. The result, explains Tognon, is a kind of visual history.
Also part of the curatorial team, João Paulo Berto, an employee of the General Coordination of the University (CGU) and museologist at the Historical Museum of the Faculty of Dentistry of Piracicaba (FOP), draws attention to another aspect of the exhibition's construction: the involvement of different groups from Unicamp.
“The research, conception, and texts presented to the public were developed within the University itself, involving faculty, staff, and students,” she says. Undergraduate students from the History course participated in the research and produced the texts that accompany the exhibition. The curatorial team is completed by Ana Cláudia Cermaria, technical director of the FOP Museum.
The choice of the City Museum to host the final stage of the traveling exhibition reinforces the proposed dialogue. According to the Municipal Secretary of Culture and Tourism, Alexandra Caprioli, Unicamp's presence is linked to Campinas' own transformation over the last few decades, whether through the training of qualified professionals, the attraction of companies and industries, or the consolidation of the municipality as a science and technology hub.
"All of Campinas' development as a metropolis and today as a city with a high standard of science and technology is also related to the presence of Unicamp," points out Caprioli.
The Director of Events for the Municipal Secretariat of Culture and Tourism, Gabriel Rapassi, emphasizes that the partnership between the University and the municipality, historically strong in areas such as education and health, is gaining new dimensions in the cultural field. "This exhibition crowns a very intense and long-standing relationship between Unicamp and the city," he stated.
Two stories meet.
The dialogue between the University and the city takes on yet another meaning within the Glass House. Alongside the exhibition about Unicamp, the exhibition Vila Rica: 60 years of struggles, achievements and identity was inaugurated , dedicated to the history of the first housing complex delivered by the Housing Company (Cohab) in Campinas, also six decades ago.
The coordinator of the City Museum, Lilian Alvisi, highlighted the temporal coincidence and, above all, the possibility of bringing the two histories closer together. The exhibition about the Vila Rica neighborhood was built with the participation of the residents themselves, who contributed photographs, memories, and accounts, and participated in the selection of the material presented.
“The two exhibitions are in dialogue,” she emphasizes. For her, both deal with identity, belonging, and occupation of territory, based on experiences that developed during the same period and that, at certain moments, even intersected.
One of these encounters took place back in the 1970s. A resident of Vila Rica and participant in the creation of the exhibition about the neighborhood, Professor José Galdino Pereira recalled that students from Unicamp began frequenting the community from 1974 onwards, developing activities related to, among other areas, public health.
According to Galdino, the students began attending to residents in a community space in the neighborhood, working with primary health care practices, an initiative that preceded the implementation of the neighborhood's public health service and left a mark on the memory of its residents. Galdino recalls, for example, accounts from people who said that it was the first time they had received close and careful attention from a future doctor.
The opening of the exhibitions also brought together students from the Violeta Dória Lins Municipal Elementary School (Emef), located in the Vila Rica neighborhood, many of whom were visiting the City Museum for the first time. The general coordinator of Unicamp took advantage of the young people's presence to extend an invitation. After explaining the public and free nature of the University and talking about the policies that seek to broaden access and retention of students from different backgrounds, he asked them to see Unicamp as a possibility for their own future. “The University should be part of your dream. You have a right to a place at Unicamp.”
Service:
Exhibition celebrating 60 years of Unicamp: three cities, one history.
Until September 30th. Tuesday to Friday, from 10 am to 12 pm and from 14 pm to 17 pm; Saturdays, from 12 pm to 16 pm.
City Museum – Glass House. Av. Dr. Heitor Penteado, 2.145 – Lago do Café, Parque Taquaral, Campinas
Free entry
Cover Photo
