Human zoo challenges racism ‘amnesia’

May 16 2014 at 07:56pm
By Balazs Koranyi

Oslo - Displaying 80 people in a human zoo in Oslo's most elegant park, two artists hope their “Congo Village” display will help erase what they say is Norwegian's collective amnesia about racism.

Re-enacting a similar display from 1914, Lars Cuznor and Mohamed Ali Fadlabi say Norway, one of the richest nations in the world, with a reputation for tolerance, has only suppressed its intolerance, especially around the time of Saturday's national day.

The Congo Village - which 100 years ago displayed African tribes, attracting 1.4 million visitors over four months - will this time exhibit volunteers taking turns living on show in makeshift huts, resembling a traditional sub-Saharan village.

“Norwegians have been propagating this self-image of a post-racial society and it's been internalised that it's a good, tolerant society,” Swedish-Canadian Cuznor told Reuters on Friday. “It's great branding and it's self perpetuating but it's a false image” ...

http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/human-zoo-challenges-racism-amnesia-1.1689780