Professors Mihelj and Reid were part of the curatorial team and played a key role in developing the exhibition concept, sourcing exhibits from around the world, and writing the accompanying panel texts. The exhibition draws on their research into television history and everyday life in socialist Eastern Europe, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Exhibits include excerpts from news programs as well as sitcoms, cartoons, and other televised content alongside TV-related magazines, artefacts, toys, and television sets from Eastern Europe, offering viewers a chance to experience what it was really like to watch TV on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
The exhibition seeks to challenge stereotypical perceptions of the Cold War and media in communist countries, which tend to reduce socialist television to a vehicle of propaganda. Just like in the West, television was a part of everyday life in Eastern Europe, with varied programming, transnational reach, and even subversive potential. Both the capitalist West and the communist East attempted to leverage TV as a medium that represented modernity and progress during the Cold War. While television was indeed a tool that promised to spread communist ideology, the reality was more complex. The state had little control over how viewers received messages in the privacy of their living rooms. Audiences in some communist countries could get television signals from the West, and television was even occasionally appropriated to broadcast countercultural messages.
The exhibition catalogue, which contains images of key exhibits as well as panel texts, can be accessed here.
To learn more about the research that informed the exhibition, see the Screening Socialism project website.