Levitating tables, conversations with deceased family members, or fortune-telling: spiritism was a “hot item” in nineteenth-century Belgium. PhD researcher Hannah Welslau (FWO) examines how spiritism found its way from living-room séances to magic at the fairground. Hannah's research focuses on how spiritism was introduced into various types of popular entertainment, such as theatre, lectures and séances. Since her FWO project is related to the Science at the Fair project, the fairground was also an obvious venue to explore. Hannah: "What struck me immediately was that spiritism at the…

What role did science and technology once play at the fairground? And how were new technologies such as X-ray technology, photography, and film presented and disseminated through the travelling network of showpeople? PhD researcher Tim Overkempe is currently investigating all of the questions above for the period 1850-1914 within the Science at the Fair project at UAntwerp. While most of us might associate the funfair with nostalgia and perhaps a touch of old-world charm, this was certainly not always the case in the past. Instead, the fairground was often the place-to-be to wonder at new…

Together with PhD student Anse De Weerdt, we visit the Antwerp university library’s Special Collections. Anse is affiliated with the UAntwerp and ULB. For the B-magic project, she aims to find out how colonial magic lantern images found their way into scientific, political and religious circles in Belgium from the end of the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century. It is Monday morning and we find ourselves at the university library's vast heritage collection. We are looking for beautiful items from the archives of the Koninklijk Aardrijkskundig Genootschap van Antwerpen (KAGA,…

We meet PhD student Gitte Samoy in Berchem, in a basement full of strange objects and curiosities: wax heads with outward signs of syphilis and other skin diseases, models of pregnant women with exposed bellies, conjoined twins preserved in formaldehyde... Welcome to the Coolen family collection! Gitte is starting her research at the Science at the Fair project with the inventory of this special collection. Together with the team, she will study the role of travelling fairgrounds in spreading science, technology and visual culture. We are standing next to the wax portrait of a man with a…

It might be hard to image for generations that grew up with the Sinksenfoor, but 150 years ago, people could learn something new at the yearly funfair. With her project Science at the Fair, Nele Wynants and her team research how itinerant showpeople and museums played an important role in the circulation and popularization of science, knowledge, and visual culture. In so-called anatomical cabinets, zoological and anthropological museums and scientific theatres, itinerant showpeople demonstrated "wonders of nature" and spectacular scientific developments at the annual funfair. Many of today’s…