ABSTRACT

At first glance, colonial exhibitions at the end of the nineteenth century can be read as a kind of utopian tri-dimensional imperial narrative of the colonising process. Colonial artefacts, orientalist scenographies and live exhibits of the natives’ so-called daily life are all mobilised in order to promote different components of the imperial ideology and highlight the economic, social and cultural progress generated by colonial endeavours. The maps of colonial exhibitions thus present a striated space where the empire is ordered and classified, where every colony has its own palace, and where everything falls into place. Colonial exhibits are then often interpreted nowadays as ideological apparatuses built for the promotion of Western powers’ imperialistic agenda and the visual demonstration of the colonised people’s savageness or racial inferiority.