Ancient history

The Negro Village in Geneva

The first “negro village” in Switzerland was built in 1896; it was the first human zoo. This one was in the Swiss village, a village where industrialization was mainly exposed. The black village brought a touch of exoticism, we thought it was a reflection of the world of colonization.
It was a village reconstituted according to the image we had of the country, and we placed exotic extras there, which led to a false image because it was too approximate. These extras, between 1850 and 1950, were exhibited in cabarets, fairs or exhibitions to show their mores and their origins. It was thought that these extras were abused; we imagine them behind cages, treated like animals, like the time when an impresario had fed the natives only with rice and they died of it. The extras were generally voluntary and "normally" salaried. Between the years 1880 and 1939 in Switzerland, there were seven black villages, made up of different huts. The last colonial exhibition took place in 1931.


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