[Revealing a history of exclusion: the experience at Hospital-Colônia Itapuã Data and Research center].

Inaugurated in May 1940, in Viamão Municipality in Rio Grande do Sul, Hospital Colônia Itapuã was meant to shelter Hansen's disease patients. Built in order to work as a small town, the hospital was the stage of several life and work histories. The fragments of these collective and individual experiences have been recovered since 1999, when Centro de Documentação e Pesquisa (Cedope/HCI) was first implemented. It is through the center activities that we propose a comparative study of the history of the hospital and the history of those who lived and those who still live in it.