The exhibition “Transitions. Enterprise – Work – Society” is created by the Ansaldo Foundation, with the co-organization of the Municipality of Genoa, in collaboration with the University of Genoa and the support of Leonardo, Confindustria Genoa and the Genoa Chamber of Commerce.

With the creation of this exhibition, the Ansaldo Foundation reveals a precious part of the archival heritage of which it is custodian . The aim is to promote a reflection on issues that are still very topical today: those of the transitions of the twentieth century, also opening a dialogue on the challenges of our present, through photographs and films from the archives of the Foundation

For the first time, the Foundation's materials are accompanied by works of art from public museums and private collections, photographic evidence of Street art and the work Magnetic Nanoparticles created specifically for Transizioni .

The Ansaldo Foundation maintains a vast documentary heritage which it undertakes to exploit as widely as possible. In this a powerful ally is digitization, launched in 2015, which allows total accessibility of materials and contributes incisively to their conservation and their passing on over time. Even more important, however, is to make this heritage alive, current and protagonist of contemporary cultural life and of training courses aimed at new and future generations. 

The archives kept by the Ansaldo Foundation contain numerous and rich testimonies that tell, in a transversal way, many of the transformations that took place in the twentieth century , not only in entrepreneurial strategies and in entire production chains, but also in society and customs , touching other important aspects such as those of impacts on the territory . 

The twentieth century detaches from the past with a sudden, radical acceleration. Industrialization distorts territories and communities, redefining urban contours and establishing new centers of power and new social hierarchies. The liberalism of the early twentieth century gives way to global markets, not without having first passed through autarkic policies. The winds of war bring with them millions of deaths, but also new social conventions; customs, habits, even fashion change. Technologies, driven by war events, make a sudden leap forward and, then placed at the service of peace, promise widespread well-being. Horizons widen out of all proportion, from the atom to space, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. Transformations still underway in an increasingly liquid scenario, of which it is however possible to identify the guidelines. 

Based on these reflections, the Ansaldo Foundation has decided to design the exhibition itinerary on the theme of transitions, which becomes the very title of the exhibition, developed along three lines: business, work and society. The exhibition itinerary aims to be a reflection on the great changes of the twentieth century that have affected and still affect territories and communities, analyzed from an industrial, economic, cultural, social and environmental point of view.