A century ago, when colonial degradation was rife and almost everything “African” was animalised and projected as ‘other’, Norway actually had a zoo of Senegalese villagers on display for the local public to view.

While we have mostly come a long way from this barbaric dehumanisation, the undertones of racism and colonial impact linger in the air like a far off sewage plant –

Possibly no-where more so than here in RSA.

To bring this painful past into the spotlight and both challenge racism and provoke discussion about it, the zoo has been recreated as a protest art piece for the one hundredth anniversary amidst heavy criticism from a range of different standpoints.

There are not many pics of the current exhibit, but here are a few from the original zoo to give you an idea of what it was.

Pretty disgusting that this continues to happen informally and under the radar. We definitely need to talk about it and bring modern-day slavery and dehumanisation into the limelight.

[Source] The Daily Beast