The exhibition seeks to lift the veil of anonymity of the women, men and children used as extras, circus freaks, actors and dancers, by telling their many stories that have long since been forgotten.

Act 1 - The discovery of the Other: reporting, collecting, displaying

The first Act features the arrival of exotic peoples in Europe from the 15th to the 18th centuries, and the fact they were considered as ‘strange foreigners’, categorized in four archetypes throughout the exhibition: the savage, the artist, the freak and the exotic ambassador.

Act 2 – Freaks and exotic beings: to observe, classify and categorize

The early 19th century witnesses the development of a new genre: the ethnic show. They first developed in theater cafés before spreading to increasingly larger venues and ultimately featured in exhibitions and circuses.

Act 3 – The spectacle of difference: to recruit, exhibit and diffuse

Between 1870 and WWII, many venues start specializing in ethnic performance such as the Crystal Palace, Barnum and Bailey in Madison Square, the Folies Bergères in Paris and the famous Panoptikum in Berlin. The phenomenon takes on a professional aspct and exotic performance metamorphose into mass entertainment.

Act 4 – Staging: to exhibit, measure and produce

Reconstructed ethnic villages, zoos, colonial and international fairs, science and spectacle merge in multiple places. Exotic peoples and physical strangeness are brought together on stage as if they both equally represented the realm of abnormality.

The conclusion deals with the end of the exhibitions. The reasons are multiple but the same worldwide and include a fall in public interest, the development of the movie industry and of new forms of imperial propaganda.