Based just outside Paris, the decaying ruins may simply look like an abandoned park, but they hold a much darker backstory
24
Based just outside Paris, France, the now-decaying ruins once homed people from Madagascar, Sudan, India, Morocco, The Congo, and Tunisia.
From 1899 until the late 1910s, the Jardin d'Agronomie Tropicale showcased rare and mysterious plants and animals of the world, but also, starting in the summer of 1907, people too.
Visitors could view locals who had been taken from Africa and India supposedly to showcase what life was like in French colonial holdings.
These communities lived in distinct villages on site, and as well as viewing individuals from such homelands, visitors could also purchase the food and goods from these countries.
The "villages," as they were known, were also meant to replicate where the likes of tropical and non-native plants had come from - a testing method to see if the likes of coffee and bananas could be grown in the French climate.
This was the primary purpose of the park, Seph Lawless, the photographer who visited the remains last month, said, but as well as bringing items of interest to botanists and historians, those overseeing the project had one summer of displaying their natives, too.
At the end of the summer of 1907 - having seen a reported one million people visit the park - the residents returned to their former colonies.
Today, the remains of some buildings still stand, as well as the likes of Chinese-style arches and an array of ponds.
After World War I, the area was rarely used as an exhibition space until it was reopened again, in 2006.
Seph, 39, from Cleveland, Ohio, visited the area after his Twitter followers voted he should go there.
The photographer said: "The ominous history surrounding it gave it an eerie feeling. It was like being inside a real-life episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror.
"It was just unbelievable to think that a place like this existed."
Some of the features that stood out, Seph said, included "the bars on the windows; the dwellings underneath the exhibits were like cages and creepy statues, seemingly out of place, hidden among the weeds".
The photographer, who also worked with a film crew on the haunting project, added: "As a known activist who uses art to promote awareness and activism, my goal with this project is to challenge the viewers to re-evaluate their views on race and immigration.
"We’re currently witnessing widespread anti-immigrant racism at an alarming level and these images are a sobering reminder of just how bad it could be."
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368. You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.
