Fantasy legal exhibitions

Abstract

This article explores the potential of ‘fantasy exhibition’ as a novel, speculative and prefigurative, legal research method. What might legal scholars gain, and what might they lose, from asking what if, and then acting as if, they were to exhibit some aspect of their research? It draws on insights from a design-driven, experimental academic workshop, held across multiple locations in central London in 2023. We place the concept of fantasy exhibition in the context of wider trends in legal research and museum practices; detail the designerly methods that we deployed to prompt and facilitate our participant collaborators to engage in fantasy exhibition; present the prototype exhibitions that emerged from the project; and identify lessons learned along the way. We draw throughout upon insights from our participant collaborators.