Conectando: Scottish Encounters with Spanish & Portuguese

Friday 5th April to Saturday 29th June | Open Monday to Saturday, 10am-5pm | Free

An exhibition celebrating 100 years of the Spanish Degree at the University of Edinburgh, with items from the archives and collections exploring connections between Scotland and the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking worlds.

The exhibition is arranged into five themed sections: Learning; The Student Experience; Journeys; Treasures; and Solidarity (the latter with a particular focus on Chile under Pinochet, and the Spanish Civil War).

We're delighted to include personal mementos from former students, including a number from Jean Henderson (née Wagstaff), mother of our Rector, Ann Henderson.

Year Abroad memorabilia includes photos collected by Edinburgh Global, which connects students and staff from the University of Edinburgh with the world.

In planning this exhibition, we wanted to do something a bit different from simply charting the history of our department – which was established in 1919 as the Spanish department and is now Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies (SPLAS).

We wanted to explore wider Scottish connections with the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking worlds. And we particularly wanted to showcase the richness and diversity of the University's collections in this area, so the exhibition contains not only books (though there are plenty of these!) but also musical instruments, artworks, manuscripts, sound and video recordings, maps and photographs.

Choosing what to put in and leave out was difficult: many fascinating books didn’t make the cut because the real appeal is in reading them, rather than seeing them open at a single page.

But our final pick of some 60 objects includes Galician bagpipes, Portuguese epic poetry, Catalan metaphysics, Spanish Civil War testimonies and Chilean solidarity through political song...

Dr Fiona J Mackintosh, Senior Lecturer in Latin American Literature and Co-curator with Dr Iona Macintyre of Conectando

Come and see / hear for yourself! Share your thoughts on social media using #SPLAStEd100.

Special events

Over the course of Conectando, the team will be running exhibition tours in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Special events in venues across Edinburgh will range from a film screening of 'Nae Pasaran', to a talk on Scotland and the Spanish Civil War, a special Spanish Sounds edition of St Cecilia’s Thursday Concerts, and (from 4th May) a family exhibition trail.

We will also be holding a seven-week series of drama workshops for young people aged 10-26 themed around the exhibition. Taking place on Saturdays, these will be led by Andrea Cabrera Luna, artistic director of Anahat Theatre.

For more information on all events, please contact Laura Beattie, Community Outreach Officer.

Are you interested in studying with us?

Celebrating the centenary of Spanish being taught at Edinburgh in 2019, we offer a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies (SPLAS). We also teach courses in Basque and Catalan.

Find out more about SPLAS at Edinburgh