Fantasy Legal Exhibitions

This article explores the potential of 'fantasy exhibition' as a novel 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? The article draws on insights from a design-driven, experimental academic workshop, held across multiple locations in central London in 2023. We first place the concept of fantasy exhibition in the context of wider trends in legal research and museum practices, then detail the designerly methods that we deployed to prompt and facilitate our participant collaborators to engage in fantasy exhibition, and finally present the prototype exhibitions that emerged from the project. We draw throughout upon the reflections of our participant collaborators.