Expo 'Routes to knowledge'

For six hundred years, KU Leuven and its students, professors and other staff have faced challenges, setbacks and victories. The exhibition Routes to Knowledge presents the university as a crossroads where thousands of personal journeys have intersected over the course of the centuries. What obstacles lay in the path of women or people of colour? What milestones are celebrated or commemorated?

The exhibition tells the stories of the great and small paths taken at the university in three chapters. 'Imagine' reveals the role of traditions, rituals and symbols, and how they have made their mark on the university’s self-image over the centuries. 'Overcome' considers barriers and exclusion: who was allowed to study or work at the university, and who was not? Finally, 'Explore' sets its sights on the wider world: students who have come from far and wide, research that travels around the globe and also ways in which the university has moved beyond its own walls.

Curatorial team: Annelies Vogels, Liesbet Nys, Tjamke Snijders, Joris Vandendriessche, Rajesh Heynickx

'Routes to knowledge' is a dual exhibition/diptych, paired with the exhibition 'The Pursuit of Knowledge' in the nearby M Leuven. You will encounter observation instruments, remarkable pieces from the Zoology Museum and the Thermotechnical Institute, as well as items from ethnographic collections that bear witness to the colonial past of the University. The exhibition ends with a sculpture garden featuring casts of world-famous works of art.