The exhibition is divided chronologically and thematically into three parts.
The first part, ‘A particular view of Sicily‘ (1900-1959), traces the long-term processes of cultural influence that connected Sicily and Europe throughout the 19th century, created and interpreted by the many travelling artists and intellectuals from Europe who chose Sicily as their home or destination, and reflects on how those processes were absorbed into a broader social and anthropological vision that has also shaped the political dimension.
The second part, ‘The Messina Conference in the history of European integration‘ (1955-1956), uses visual and documentary evidence to reconstruct the events leading up to the Conference, underlining both its significance as a defining step towards European integration and its role in placing the Mezzogiorno at the centre of the political debate.
This provides an introduction to the final part, ‘Europe in Sicily‘ (1950-2014), in which the political, cultural and social aspects of post-war Sicily highlight the historical continuities and discontinuities resulting from the integration into Europe, as Sicily transforms from a peripheral area of the Communities – and therefore an object of European integration and development efforts – to a part of a much more European ‘south’, and finally, in very recent history, recovers its role as a gate to and border of Europe.