This year’s April Fakes Day focuses on questioning ideas of fakery in science.
Once again, we explore the blurriness between real and fake in fun and engaging ways.
In collaboration with Professor Patricia Kingori at Oxford Population Health’s Ethox Centre, the University of Oxford, and Professor Emily Cloatre at King’s College London, institutions around the UK will spotlight fakes in science and pseudo-science.
April Fakes Day serves as an opportunity to engage with the complexities of fakery and its role in shaping our understanding of reality. We engage with collections, research and the stories we tell to celebrate curiosity, creativity and critical thinking.
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Ultimate Picture Palace, Jeune Street, Oxford, OX4 1BN
Tuesday April 1th 2025 @ 6PM
Join us for a special screening of ‘Safe’, followed by a Q&A led by Professor Patricia Kingori (curator of April Fakes Day) and Professor Caitjan Gainty (Kings College London) who has worked extensively on the history of medical therapeutics and alternative & complementary therapies.
Safe is a quietly disturbing film that can be read in many ways: as a critique of self-help culture, a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, a drama about class and social isolation, and even a form of horror about the invisible dangers that surround us. We follow California housewife Carol as she seeks answers for her mystery illness, turning to self-help and alternative treatments.
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Specimens under the spotlight in the digital collection including a fake, fake!
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Fakes in science activity download. Indulge in a set of interactive games and puzzles including ‘Spot the difference’, ‘Connect the dots’ designed to focus on the accuracy and interpretation of scientific tools and evidence.
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Errol Francis from Culture& writes on one of history's most persistent examples of fake science, race science.
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COMING SOON
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Caitjan Gainty from Kings College London on ‘fake doctors’, examining the historical tensions around this question to consider just what it meant and means now to be ‘real.’