ILE's Senior Researcher, Dr. Fenyvesi joined Science is Wonderful! Fair 2026 in Brussels: Nobel-awarded Words in Motion, Play, and Surprise

As one of the European Union’s flagship initiatives supporting early-career researchers, MSCA does more than fund excellent science—it also brings it into public space. Under the coordination of Sybille Luhmann and her team, the event combines scientific excellence with open, participatory formats. Over three days, more than 4,500 students engaged with around 150 researchers from over 30 countries in an environment that felt less like an exhibition and more like a carefully structured, high-energy learning festival.

The starting point was a surrealist method—cadavre exquis—reframed through Literary Nobel Prize-winning texts. Participants built stories one sentence at a time, each seeing only the previous line. No full context. No need for full understanding. Just continuation.

A circle forms around a tablet. One sentence appears. Someone reads it aloud, hesitates, then adds the next. The story begins to move. A Hungarian quote draws attention. Students try to identify the language. Kazakh? Turkish? No agreement—but the writing starts anyway.

“Sosem kezdhetünk új életet, mindig csak a régit folytathatjuk.”
We can never start a new life, we can only continue the old one. — Imre Kertész

Within minutes, the story has drifted far from the original. It does not matter. The quote functions as a trigger, not a boundary. Another fragment appears:

“Ami kimondható és elgondolható, annak léteznie kell.”
What can be said and thought must exist. — László Krasznahorkai

It anchors the group for a moment—then disappears into the flow of the next sentences.

Across the table, a different kind of pause. The Korean script by Han Kang holds attention longer:

사랑이란 어디 있을까?
팔딱팔딱 뛰는 나의 가슴 속에 있지. —  Han Kang

For most students, it is unreadable. That unfamiliarity opens the widest space. Hannah M. King builds on this moment, offering playful cues rather than direct translations. Interpretations expand quickly—stories about connection, distance, movement, even machines. This becomes the most popular quote at the booth, precisely because it resists immediate meaning.

Elsewhere, other lines circulate:

“Penso que não cegámos, penso que estamos cegos.”
I think we haven’t gone blind, I think we are blind. — José Saramago

“Świat jest tkaniną, którą przędziemy codziennie…”
The world is a fabric we weave daily… — Olga Tokarczuk

“Jedes Wort weiß etwas vom Teufelskreis.”
Every word knows something of a vicious circle. — Herta Müller

Each of them enters the process, then dissolves into it. Meanwhile, Kristóf Fenyvesi moves between groups, occasionally stepping in with a short prompt, but mostly letting the activity unfold. The structure is light, but it holds. Groups form, dissolve, and re-form. Some stay for minutes, others return later. The flow continues without interruption.

In a setting like Science is Wonderful!, this is not trivial. The environment is dense, fast, and full of competing stimuli—high tech lab equipment, experiments, simulations. Attention shifts quickly. Yet here, a literary game holds its ground. Part of its strength lies in contrast. In a space largely shaped by STEM, this booth introduces the humanities without isolating them. It does not argue for their relevance. It demonstrates it—through language, play, and shared construction.

Beyond the booth, the programme extends into visits to European institutions, ERC consultations, and stimulating evening programs where conversations continue over dinner. The structure, shaped by Sybille Luhmann and her team, connects these layers seamlessly. Formal sessions and informal exchanges reinforce each other.

What becomes visible across these days is consistent. Participation comes first. Understanding follows—sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, sometimes not at all in a conventional sense. And yet, something stays. Language, even when unfamiliar, becomes usable. Literature, even in fragments, becomes shared. And research, when opened in this way, becomes something people can enter without hesitation. It does not require simplification. Only the right kind of invitation.