 For photos of "Jardin Tropical" click here
Who wants to know how moss is growing over remains on France's history of colonization only need to visit the tropical gardens in Paris. Moss grows about everything what remained in this side from the 1907 world expo. Not much is left of this: The roofs of the pavilions are collapsing, homeless people had set fire in the Congo Pavilion on a fire and the place is left to rot like today's Congo. Paint is flaking off, as if France want simply forget its colonial past. The garden could be a great teaching tool for historians and others like anthropologists who are interested in post colonial things. How about rebuilding the tropical garden with the help of the nations who have their pavilions still here, for tea room, or galleries show chasing their roots now as they want to be portrait? The time are over where like during the world expo 1907 men and women from the French colonies had been brought to Europe and rented out to zoological and tropical gardens, where they were put on show alongside exotic animals. Kanak warriors and their families were shipped over from French New Caledonia. African families recruited in Senegal, Niger, Guinea and Dahomey to live in mock villages of their original habitats. Exhibitors dressed them in their traditional costumes, and told them to dance or play music for the spectators. Don't even think scientists were condemning such exhibition. The opposite was the case: they grabbed this opportunity to study the these "zoo-people" collected data for their work of which then much contributed to the racial theories of the period. The "Jardin tropical" is the only remaining site in France where the displays have not been razed to the ground. You can find the garden tucked away in a deep corner of the Park Vincennes in Paris. Comments are closed.
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