What can oral history reveal about fairground life that conventional archives cannot? In conversation with three retired showwomen, historian Véronique Faber and filmmaker Alexandra Rice recorded memories of work, family life and skills learned through practice. Together with Nele Wynants, they reflect on what happens when women remember their working lives collectively – and on how oral history can preserve traces of a mobile and performative culture that might otherwise be lost.

In the shadow of the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels, an extraordinary collection of over four hundred fairground ephemera recently surfaced at a vintage poster shop. This historical trove comprises an assortment of advertisements from the funfair season in the city of Leuven, providing a vivid glimpse into the world of popular visual and performance culture around 1900. These fragile documents shed light on many facets of fairground culture during that time, including the promotion of attractions and personalities, the variety of spectacles, and the overall organization of the fairs.…