February 17, 2026
Our exhibition World's Fairs: Visions of Tomorrow highlights some of the coolest architectural marvels and innovations from fairs of the past. Take for example the Eiffel Tower, one of the world's most iconic structures, built for the Paris fair in 1889—or RCA's first consumer television set, introduced at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Beyond experiencing the incredible designs, posters, and ephemera from the fairs, we wanted to know: what it was actually like to visit one of these fairs in person? Filmmaker and Wolfsonian social media manager Christopher Lopez set out to answer that, creating an in-gallery video loop that stitched together archival footage, both official documentation and home movies, to capture a century of fairgoers' perspectives.
"I went through hundreds of hours of footage to find a structure that could both entertain and educate people as they moved through the space," Lopez shared. The assemblage reflects the evolution of video technology. Early fairs are represented through surviving photographs and turn-of-the-century film, while by the 1930s, portable cameras fed an explosion of self-shot footage. Add a dreamy, reflective soundscape, and voila: a nostalgic, cinematic journey through time.
In the gallery, the film unfolded across three synchronized screens—an echo of the immersive media spectacles presented at the fairs. "One of my favorite discoveries while making this film came during the editing process itself. I stumbled onto a sub-sub-genre I hadn't fully considered before: films made for the world's fairs. Titles like To Be Alive! (1964), In the Labyrinth (1967), and This Is New Zealand (1970)—my favorite title of the bunch— were created for viewing at world’s fairs and showcased new ways of presenting and experiencing film, particularly through multi-screen projection. In a way, the final piece feels like it became what it was documenting: a world's fair film made in the style of the films shown at the actual fairs."
We hope you enjoy the video, reformatted from its original presentation in the gallery for online viewing.