These were public exhibitions where people from colonised regions, particularly Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, were displayed for entertainment under the guise of education or anthropology.

Often presented alongside animals or exotic artefacts, these exhibitions reflected the racial hierarchies and colonial ideologies that defined Europe’s imperial age.

While largely forgotten today, the phenomenon reveals how deeply racism and empire shaped popular culture and scientific thought across Europe. Understanding this dark history offers critical insight into how ideas of race, civilisation, and spectacle continue to influence modern societies.

Figures like Carl Hagenbeck, a German animal trader turned exhibitor, pioneered the combination of animal and human displays to appeal to European audiences’ sense of exotic spectacle.

Examples of these shows were widespread in cities such as Paris, London, Milan, Hamburg, and Barcelona.

In Spain, for instance, a human zoo was held in Madrid’s Retiro Park in 1887, including indigenous Filipino people. Some of these displays even lasted into the mid-20th century. For example, at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, a “Congolese Village” exhibit drew criticism and protests from participants.

In recent years, museums and scholars have worked to uncover this history. The website humanzoos.net documents many of these exhibitions and shares testimonies and research. In Germany, a museum exhibition titled MENSCHENanSCHAUEN. Von Blicken zu Taten opened, focusing on this phenomenon.

Artistic works also revisit the topic: Brett Bailey’s controversial performance Exhibit B examined the ethics of spectacle, race, and history by bringing memory and critique into public space .