FAKE FOR REAL

From the social media uproar caused by the Paris summer olympics to the unfounded claims that a stabbing attack in England was perpetrated by a Muslim, and from the Covid-19 infodemic to former US President Donald Trump's vitriolic assails against Vice President Kamala Harris fake news rules the world. In many cases it has real consequences in real life. In fact the more heated the debate, the more facts are vulnerable to manipulation. Some of the tactics applied to obfuscate truth and promote lies are ages-old, talking heads on TV pushing their agendas over really pressing issues being a latterday modification. Others are new and technologically driven: AI that churns "deep fakes," targeted social media campaigns that rely on the users' inability or unwillingness to check the facts while getting a kick from emotions like outrage and disgust.

Ancient Roman coin with erased image of Emperor Geta

The temporary exhibition Fake for Real/History of Forgery and Falsification at the National Ethnographic Museum demonstrates that fake news is neither new nor constricted to the confines of political life. Created in 2020 by the House of European History in Brussels, it explores the lure of lies and deception over truth in the past 2,000 years of Europe's history, and their power over people's imagination and political action.

Labyrinthine and mixing traditional linear storytelling with modern multimedia, the exhibition focuses on six areas. Ruling and Praying explores how ancient emperors and the medieval clergy meddled with the truth to achieve their goals – from the Roman practice of erasing any trace of former rulers to the mass production of "holy relics" in the Middle Ages.

Reliquary with one of the many "holy relics" of St John the Baptist, massively propagated in the Middle Ages

Understanding the World explains how the invention of the printing press and the widely popular, but never fact-checked, pamphlets affected the way people perceived their world, resulting in phenomena like witch hunts.

The section Uniting and Dividing shows how the young European nations in the 18th and the 19th century would often create fake histories and epics to assert their identities. A more sinister result was the creation of fake scapegoats for all real or perceived ills in society, ominously focusing on Jews as exemplified by the Dreyfus Affair and the fabricated, but hugely influential Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

From left: Le Petit Journal depicts the degradation of Alfred Dreyfus; Anonymous note accusing pharmacist David Welman of witchcraft and being a werewolf; A Russian edition of fake The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Nodding to Aeschylus that in war truth is the first victim, the fourth theme of the exhibition, Fighting War, shows the many ways people have twisted and tweaked truth when they needed to survive or win in a war. The exhibition here focuses on the ingenious ways the Allies and Resistance used to deceive the Nazi, from fake identities and documents to fake paratroopers.

Han van Meegeren, Interior of St Lawrence Church in Rotterdam, painted mimicking the techniques of the Dutch Old Masters

The section Fake and Fortune brings us to our times, exploring how forgeries are used to make quick cash – this is not restricted to production of fake paintings by classical artists, but also to the Abidas sneakers and Guci bags.

Logically, and inevitably, the final topic of the exhibition is our own era of post-truth. The examples are recent, focusing on how Russia portrays its "special military operation" in Ukraine.

Media installation dedicated to modern information bubbles

At the end, the visitor faces two Bulgarians, a man and a woman, who survived brutal political repression under Communism in Bulgaria, sharing their stories of the regime.

Informative, but intentionally disorienting and labyrinthine, Fake For Fact has a clear message: facts matter and we all need to be careful with them. Sadly, it does not answer the other pressing question: why, even when we do know the facts, we so often disagree over their interpretation.

The Fake For Real. History of Forgery and Falsification exhibition in Sofia is supported by the America for Bulgaria Foundation. It is at the National Ethnographic Museum, on 1 Prince Alexander I Sq, until 20 October