Colonial Spectacles

Dutch colonial presentations at the world exhibitions in the period 1880-1931 served to legitimize the Dutch imperialist project and highlight the problem of Dutch identity and the Netherlands' place in the world. At these exhibitions, the Netherlands showed off its colonies by erecting models of schools, sugar-factories, bridges, and railways exhibits, which were meant to give proof of the good works of modern colonial administration and enterprise. Not only were there displays of ethnographic objects, life-size temples and villages inhabited by authentic Javanese and Sumatrans were brought to Europe specifically for these expositions. Their presence took the viewer into an "Other" world that provided an "immediacy" for visitors to the exhibition. While these colonial spectacles helped legitimize Dutch imperialism project, they also provided lenses for understanding the colonial world as it was constructed according to the prevailing evolutionist worldview at the time.