The magic lantern was an important visual entertainment and means of instruction in nineteenth-century Europe and its former colonies; it was used in popular and academic teaching until the 1950s. However, despite its pervasiveness across multiple scientific, educational and popular contexts, magic lantern slides remain under-researched.
The project and the conference engage with magic lantern slides on several levels:
- studying the historical importance of magic lantern slides, projection apparatus, readings, and other paraphernalia as tools in the history of learning in a wide range of fields
- exchanging archival practices and discussing tools for cataloguing, archiving and giving access to magic lantern slides held in heritage institutions and other collections
- stimulating the re-use of this form of cultural heritage in scholarly, artistic, documentary, cultural and other creative practices.