One of the most arresting images from Belgian colonial history is the photograph of Nsala of Wala gazing at his daughter’s severed hand and foot, taken by English missionary and photographer Alice Seeley Harris in 1904. This disturbing image, capturing the atrocities of King Leopold II’s brutal regime in the Congo Free State (1885-1908), was not only a grim testament to the horrors of the rubber trade but also a powerful visual tool in the fight against colonial abuses. Projected during magic lantern lectures, Harris's photograph played a pivotal role in raising awareness of human rights…

At a time when few Europeans travelled to the African continent, the public stilled their curiosity for what happened in the Congo Free State by listening to the travel stories of European explorers. How was the colony represented in Belgium between 1885-1945? This is the key question of Anse De Weerdt’s PhD research. In the following, she will tell us where her quest began. Whenever I visited my grandfather, he would eagerly show his collection of old cameras, which he collected as a hobby photographer. On his dresser, he flaunted three magic lanterns. These three pieces in his collection…

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,…