Museum as an educational power: “The Paraná Immigration Exhibition” at the Paranaense Museum

This article proposes the experience of assembling a long term exhibition regarding the coming of immigrants to Paraná, a state in southern Brazil, in late XIX and early XXI century. Starting from a collective and inclusive curatorship of many social groups representing the main ethnicities that comprise the paranaense population, the exhibition, inaugurated in September 2017 at the Paranaense Museum, has the aim to demystify the narrative where nationalities ought to be celebrated, and others forgotten. The focus was on the historical process of occupation of the territory and the cultural legacy, both material and immaterial, that immigrant groups left, such as language, symbols, traditions and customs. This exhibition employed school groups and visitors’ attendance as a starting point to reflect on the reality of immigrants and a bigger acceptance by local population.