Exhibitions & Books
The engagement with and sharing of cultural heritage creates new memories
Documentary Exhibition
“When the Drawers Open”
On display at the Library, this exhibition presents a selection from the Historical Archive of the Rovisco Pais Colony Hospital. It may be visited in conjunction with the Museum, by prior appointment.
“For decades, drawers and cabinets silently safeguarded traces of lives and routines from Portugal’s last leprosarium. Among forgotten papers and scattered records, stories remained suspended in time—memories of those who lived, worked, and provided care there. The project Safeguarding and Archival Processing of the Historical Archive of the Rovisco Pais Colony Hospital, developed within the framework of the Iberarchivos Programme, made it possible to recover, organise, and preserve this documentary heritage, transforming the archive into a space of memory and knowledge. The archive reveals itself, and memories endure.”
Travelling Exhibition
“Hansen Stories”
First presented in 2021, this exhibition invites visitors to engage with a set of memories narrated in the first person by individuals who shared the same space—the Rovisco Pais Colony Hospital (Tocha–Cantanhede), the last and only National Leprosarium, specialised in the treatment of Hansen’s disease between 1947 and 1996.
The exhibition is part of the project “Rovisco Pais old leprosy – a museological nucleus and storytelling website”, developed at the Centre for Rehabilitation Medicine of the Central Region – Rovisco Pais, with the support of the Sasakawa Health Foundation (Japan). It features a selection of fifteen “stories” by former patients, former staff members, and visitors to the former Hospital, drawn from the collection published on the website of the same name. These testimonies share the common characteristic of being previously unpublished.
The Hansen Stories exhibition has already been shown at several venues across the country and may be made available to institutions wishing to host it. The loan of the exhibition is free of charge and must be requested via the appropriate form.
In 2022, to mark the 75th anniversary of the Hospital’s opening, a book on the history of this therapeutic village was published, incorporating several of the memories collected within the framework of the same project.
HANSEN STORIES – AN EXHIBITION THAT TELLS STORIES AROUND A HOSPITAL AND A DISEASE
The proceedings volume of the 1st Colloquium on Health Museums, published by the Coimbra Local Health Unit in May 2025, is available in print and online.
