Revamped Portrait Gallery Showcases Wageningen University & Research’s Diversity

Wageningen University & Research’s (WUR) renovated portrait gallery is to be revealed on 26 March. In addition to the traditional portraits of former rectores magnifici, the wall features three framed screens on which videos of WUR students and employees are projected. Artist Giacomo Sardonini shot the footage during his exploration of the campus and other WUR locations. ‘The former wall showed us the past’, says Chris van Kreij, Omnia manager and member of the working group that commissioned the renovation. ‘The new gallery reflects today’s WUR, in all its diversity.’

It had become clear that the “all-male” portrait gallery needed an answer, and diligent efforts were made to seek an alternative. ‘We aim to keep updating the video wall’, Van Kreij says. ‘By adding new images regularly, the wall will continue to provide a dynamic representation of our organisation.’ The appointment of the new rector magnificus, Professor Carolien Kroeze, opens the way for the first portrait of a woman. She will have the honour of revealing the new portrait gallery.

Diversity and accessibility

The three new screens will each repeat a unique video in a loop of approximately two minutes. The clips show the everyday reality of WUR, as Sardonini proposed. ‘Images of students on the campus or in the library; groundskeepers and lab assistants; researchers doing fieldwork, men, women, people from all over the world’, Van Kreij states. Each video portrait is a few seconds, ensuring that even a fleeting glance at the screens is enough to show WUR’s diversity.

This renovation makes the building and WUR more accessible, says Van Kreij, who provides guided tours of Omnia. ‘We host a wide range of visitors here. Scientists, students, businesses, and interested civilians from all walks of life. Some visit only once, the families of PhD graduates, for example. The new wall shows them, at a single glance, what kind of organisation WUR is and aims to be: an organisation where they, too, are welcome and represented.

Opening of the new portrait gallery

The renovated wall of fame will be opened on 26 March at 18:30. The opening will take place prior to the screening of the documentary Picture a Scientist (2020) during the regular DocuScience evening in Omnia. ‘The documentary addresses gender inequality in science and tells the stories of various female scientists and the barriers they encountered. After the screening, Wageningen Dialogues will facilitate a dialogue, which will enable us to discuss this important topic amongst ourselves’, says Van Kreij. Both the opening and the documentary are open to all. However, seating for the film is limited.