Colonial spectacle recreated oriental chaos as a managed imitation

Evidence

The Egyptian exhibit had also been made carefully chaotic. In contrast to the geometric lines of the rest of the exhibition, the imitation street was laid out in the haphazard manner of the bazaar. The way was crowded with shops and stalls, where Frenchmen dressed as Orientals sold perfumes, pastries, and tarbushes. To complete the effect of the bazaar, the French organisers had imported from Cairo fifty Egyptian donkeys, together with their drivers and the requisite number of grooms, farriers, and saddle-makers. The donkeys gave rides for the price of one franc up and down the street, resulting in a clamour and confusion so life-like, the director of the exhibition was obliged to issue an order restricting the donkeys to a certain number at each hour of the day. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 51

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how colonial exhibitions engineered ‘authentic chaos’ through deliberate regulation — the paradox of curating disorder as a form of dominance.