1947: “London Fog” - The Thames, by Anthony Linck and Hans Wild for LIFE Magazine
Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage
Paris’s most talked-about exhibition of the winter opened on Tuesday with shock and soul-searching over the history of colonial subjects used in human zoos, circuses and stage shows, which flourished until as late as 1958. Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage, curated by former French international footballer turned anti-racism campaigner Lilian Thuram, traces the history of a practice which started when Christopher Columbus displayed six “Indians” at the Spanish royal court in 1492 and went on to become a mass entertainment phenomenon in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Millions of spectators turned out to see “savages” in zoos, circuses, mock villages and freak shows from London to St Louis, Barcelona to Tokyo. These “human specimens”, and “living museums” served both colonialist propaganda and scientific theories of so-called racial hierarchies. The exhibition at Paris’s Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac’s museum dedicated to once-colonised cultures – is the first to look at this international phenomenon as a whole. It brings together hundreds of bizarre and shocking artefacts, ranging from posters for “Male and Female Australian Cannibals” in London, which was the world capital of such stage shows, to documentation for mock villages of “Arabs” and “Sengalese”, or juggling tribeswomen in France, which was renowned for its extensive human zoos. Thuram, who was born on the French Caribbean island Guadaloupe, said the exhibition explained the background of racist ideas and “fear of the ‘other’” which persisted today. You have to have the courage to say that each of us has prejudices, and these prejudices have a history,” Thuram explained. He said he was appalled that Hamburg zoo still had sculptures of Indians and Africans at its entrance, a sign that humans as well as animals were on display.
Fanfarlo - Fire Escape (from Reservoir)
Fanfarlo are an indie pop band which formed in 2006 in London, England. The band consists of Simon Balthazar (vocals, guitar, clarinet), Cathy Lucas (vocals, mandolin, violin, keyboards), Leon Beckenham (keyboards, trumpet), Justin Finch (bass, vocals) and Amos Memon (drums). Mark West (guitar, keyboards) left the band in 2008. The band’s name is a reference to Charles Baudelaire’s novella, “La Fanfarlo.”
Dickens’s Victorian London is a collection of 19th-century photographs which has been published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’s birth.
1. A view of the Strand around 1890, taken from in front of St Mary le Strand. On the left is Somerset House, where Dickens’s father John worked as a clerk for the Navy Pay Office.
2. Lower Fore Street, a narrow cobblestoned street in Lambeth, pictured in 1865. This industrial area became very densely populated over the Victorian period; its inhabitants rose from 28,000 in 1801 to nearly 300,000 by the time this photograph was taken.
3. This picture shows St John’s Gate, the gateway to what was once the priory of the Knights of St John. By the 18th century, it housed the offices of the publishers of the Gentleman’s Magazine.
A Tale of Two Towers
It was the crowning achievement of his career. And it was the beginning of a feud. At the 1889 inauguration of his famous Paris tower, Gustav Eiffel was feted as a French national hero. But among the few who did not appreciate his iron skyscraper was a patriotic Englishman named Edward Watkin. Watkin resented the Eiffel Tower for one simple reason: it stood more than five times higher than Britain’s national monument, Nelson’s Column. As far as Watkin was concerned, Gustav Eiffel had thrown down the gauntlet. He made a private vow to construct a British tower that would be taller, bigger and more spectacular than anything the French could build. […] “Anything Paris can do, London can do better!” was his boast. By the end of 1889, architects from across the world were working on designs for a tower that would be taller and more spectacular than Eiffel’s. Watkin’s idea fired the public imagination and his Metropolitan Tower Construction Company became a byword for national pride. The Company offered a prize of 500 guineas for the best designed tower. With more than a hint of mischief, Watkin even dared to approach Gustav Eiffel and ask if he’d like to submit an entry. Eiffel politely declined. “If I,” he said, “after erecting my tower on French soil, were to erect one in England, they would not think me so good a Frenchman as I hope I am.”
Plaid - Rakimou (From Not For Threes)
Plaid is a London-based British electronic music duo comprising Andy Turner and Ed Handley. British music rag NME once dubbed Black Dog “the most revered techno outfit since Kraftwerk.” After Ed Handley and Andy Turner disbanded Black Dog in 1995, they began recording under the name Plaid. Plaid have had a celebrated past with electronica. This release, Not for Threes, is a consistently re-firmation that Plaid have been consistently making superb albums for sometime now, that are an amalgamation of trip-hop, electro-techno, IDM, Experimental and ambient electronic, that remain tightly woven across the tracks on their albums and retain a cerebral yet hypnotic sound.
Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage
Paris’s most talked-about exhibition of the winter opened on Tuesday with shock and soul-searching over the history of colonial subjects used in human zoos, circuses and stage shows, which flourished until as late as 1958. Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage, curated by former French international footballer turned anti-racism campaigner Lilian Thuram, traces the history of a practice which started when Christopher Columbus displayed six “Indians” at the Spanish royal court in 1492 and went on to become a mass entertainment phenomenon in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Millions of spectators turned out to see “savages” in zoos, circuses, mock villages and freak shows from London to St Louis, Barcelona to Tokyo. These “human specimens”, and “living museums” served both colonialist propaganda and scientific theories of so-called racial hierarchies. The exhibition at Paris’s Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac’s museum dedicated to once-colonised cultures – is the first to look at this international phenomenon as a whole. It brings together hundreds of bizarre and shocking artefacts, ranging from posters for “Male and Female Australian Cannibals” in London, which was the world capital of such stage shows, to documentation for mock villages of “Arabs” and “Sengalese”, or juggling tribeswomen in France, which was renowned for its extensive human zoos. Thuram, who was born on the French Caribbean island Guadaloupe, said the exhibition explained the background of racist ideas and “fear of the ‘other’” which persisted today. You have to have the courage to say that each of us has prejudices, and these prejudices have a history,” Thuram explained. He said he was appalled that Hamburg zoo still had sculptures of Indians and Africans at its entrance, a sign that humans as well as animals were on display.
James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1838 - 1903); Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1874).
(via ifiwereabear)
Hello. I'm Kevin. I'm French and I currently live in Montreal where I study Business and Environmental Science at Concordia University. You'll find here some of the things that I read and find interesting. 
