A Dialog between Accounting, History, and the Arts

Museum of Burgos, Burgos, Spain, March – June 2023

The University of Burgos ERGO research group is organizing a temporary exhibition on the role of accounting in society, proposing a renovated way of presenting accounting problems and research advances in the field. Between March and June 2023, specialists and the general public will find displayed elements adapted to their interests in the venue for the temporary exhibition in the Museum of Burgos (C/Miranda, 13).

The exhibition dilutes the limits between science and art and presents accounting as something that overflows economics. Accounting appears as a tool having significance in the most varied aspects of social life, bringing together accounting vestiges with art masterpieces organized according to thematic sections. In each section, visitors explore the role of accounting in the construction and resolution of historical, future, and everyday problems. Themes include economic progress, state administration, social inequality, and climate change.

Each theme is located in a specific epoch. The first accounting treatise written in Spanish is displayed, together with early double-entry bookkeeping accounting records and state administrative records in different periods. Alongside, art masterpieces from the Renaissance, Baroque, and Enlightenment periods, as well as contemporary art, suggest how these same problems were captured in the culture and the mindset of the different periods. In doing so, the exhibition shows how the relationship of accounting with these problems is not just something of the present but inherent to our discipline.

This activity, together with a set of roundtables, has the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology. All the material produced for this dialogue between accounting, history, and the arts is accessible from the project’s website: https://www.accounting4theplanet.com  and on its social profiles on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Germán Gamero Igea, Universidad de Burgos

Luis Araus Ballesteros, Museo de Burgos

Curators of the exhibition