Fake For Real Touring Exhibition

House of European History exhibition hits the road

The Ancient Greeks, the myth goes, used a wooden horse to deceive their enemies and breach the walls of Troy. Throughout the centuries – in war, politics, the economy and other spheres of human activity – forgery and deceit were used to advance their creators’ goals. Fake for Real: A History of Forgery and Falsification, is an exhibition that explored these themes for more than a year at the House of European History, its Brussels base. Now, it is on a tour around Europe, visiting cities such as Thessaloniki, Sofia, Budapest, Bucharest, Gdansk and Kristianstad.

The exhibition presents falsifications throughout history. It describes the specific historical circumstances that explain their appearance, the interests and motives behind them and the impact they had. It also demonstrates how they were ultimately exposed. Set chronologically across six big themes, Fake for Real displays more than 100 artefacts from the House of European History collection. It also includes films and interactive games.

Display cases in Fake for Real exhibition — © Mayvaert, facts & fiction

What is displayed?

Each case study tells a story of falsification and deceit: from the alleged Donation of Constantine, manipulated biographies of medieval Christian saints, to forged works of art and counterfeit consumer goods. The exhibition presents a wide range of different objects, art works, images, and historically important documents, maps featuring imaginary territories, treatises on witchcraft and false evidence used to accuse a French artillery officer of espionage – the story that went down in history as the Dreyfus Affair. The final section of the exhibition, titled ‘Era of Post Truth?’ is an interactive space with games and videos, where visitors can become fact-checkers, decide on what gets published or censored and play around with an innovative ‘filter bubble’ to explore how social media work. The exhibition ends with an interactive timeline about Russian disinformation and an immersive artistic installation about the same topic in the context of the current war. All exhibits demonstrate something poignant and unique about how we want to understand the world or deliberately misrepresent it.

Piltdown Man

Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique. © Bernard Fontanel, DEC.

Anonymous note accusing pharmacist David Welman of witchcraft and being a werewolf

Following a local dispute, numerous notes such as this one appeared in Lemgo, Germany. After two trials, Welman was executed. Lemgo, 1642 Stadtarchiv Lemgo

The forged ID card of Holocaust victim Max Fuchs

A refugee from Nazi Germany, Max Fuchs was deported to Auschwitz in one of the last departures from Mechelen (occupied Belgium) in spring 1944. Germany 1923, occupied Belgium 1940

4th Russian edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

The Protocols were published, and probably written, by Pavel Krushevan, one of the instigators of the Kishinev pogrom in Bessarabia in 1903. It is a patchwork of plagiarised texts, sourced mainly from the three books displayed here. Russia,1917

Constantini Donatione declamatio

In 1440, Lorenzo Valla wrote his treatise arguing the inauthenticity of the Donation of Constantine. While Valla’s work was prohibited by the Roman Catholic church, the Donation remained part of the Canon Law. Helmstedt, 1520

George Psalmanzar, An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island Subject to the Emperor of Japan. Giving an Account of the Religion, Customs, Manners, &c. of the Inhabitants

Psalmanazar’s 1704 account of Formosa soon sold out. The revised, more sensationalist 1705 edition was translated into Dutch, French and German. London, 1705

1.Geta_coin_2022.1248_front - resize.jpg

Roman coin with Caracalla and Geta - front

Septimius Severus envisioned that his sons become co-emperors.

Roman coin with Caracalla and Geta - back

Caracalla, however had his brother murdered in 212 CE and seized all the power. The name and image of Geta was removed from documents, inscriptions and even coins Roman Empire, 211–217 CE

Visitor experience

The exhibition encourages the visitors to reflect on how falsehoods are told and fakes created and for what purpose. It also explains that thanks to critical approach, science or simple curiosity these falsehoods are, in the end, debunked. Fake for Real, offers insight into different meanings assigned to truth, fakery and proof throughout the ages.

The motives, strategies and tools deceivers and forgers use, emerge from specific political and social circumstances. Nevertheless, the human predisposition to believe in fakes, as well as the objectives behind deceiving others, seem to be universal. Thus, promoting media literacy, strengthening critical thinking through historical examples and providing the visitors with hints on how to tackle disinformation in this time and age are the key goals of the exhibition.