“Auf dem Markt fing alles an!” – “It all started at the market!”. That was the motto of the former Markt- und Schaustellermuseum in Essen, Germany.  The museum, which unfortunately closed in 2021 after 25 years, showed that the precursors of our modern-day doctors, pharmacists, bankers, trading companies, marketeers and recruiters, as well as artists, musicians and show people often earned their daily bread at the local fairs. Given the relevant scope of the museum and its rich body of sources, a research trip to Essen by SciFair researchers was a priority, especially since the variety of…

Why do we seem to be simultaneously obsessed and outraged by people who lie, invent different identities and dupe people into believing them? Tricksters and frauds have been around for ages, making up one colourful persona after the other. How can researchers deal with dishonest historical actors, for example when looking at the fairground? In this article, Hannah Welslau looks back on a research seminar with professor Tine Van Osselaer on the topic of imposters and the ambivalent sources they have left. Liars are fascinating. In the last years, famous scammers such as the fake heiress Anna…

A Nigerian medical student went viral when he shared an illustration of a black pregnant woman.The image stirred up emotions as people realized they had never seen this kind of image of someone of colour. SciFair PhD student Gitte Samoy reflects on this ‘new’ insight. The viral image made something painfully clear: even in the twenty-first century, the medical field was still presenting the white body as the default. It not only revealed a lack of diversity in the medical field, but also demonstrated another point: although these images claim to be neutral recordings of reality, visualizing…

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…