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Human zoos, an exhibition in Paris that took the attention of the many, display people from foreign lands like the African countries.

Hundreds of years back, after the first expeditions of discovery, several societies based in Europe developed a high interest in exhibiting unusual human "specimens," which are sent back to London, Berlin or Paris.

During the 19th century, this phenomenon has transformed curiosity of people into a ghastly pseudo-science while several researchers look for physical evidence to explain the theory of races.

In the colonial era, human zoos became part of the big international trade fairs, drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators.

During the trade fair, visitors saw whole villages of Senegalese or Kanaks where real-life people are paid to demonstrate religious rituals for their colonizers.

The exhibition is aimed at showing how Western societies generated the meaning of "the other" in relation to foreign inhabitants.

"What we tried to do is conduct a kind of archaeology of the stereotype," said curator Nanette Snoep.

One of the exhibitions featured was the "Inventing the Savage," a display that is inspired by Liliane Thuram, a Caribbean-born former international footballer who is now establishing an anti-racism organization.

"I have long been interested in slavery because of the way my own family was affected by it," Thuram said.

"It became clear to me that racism was above all an intellectual construction. And as such, it was also susceptible to de-construction," he added.

Thuram plans to make people understanding why there are faultlines between societies by way of the exhibition. Through his display, many will realize the reason behind the different shades of our skins.

Everything was fairly benign at the beginning. A Dutch sailor brought one of the first paintings of four Greenlanders to court in 1664. They gaze with a look as confused as those that can be witnessed on their captors' faces.

Their names are written on top of the painting. They maybe exotic in the early time, but they can still be regarded as people. "It is later when the names disappear that the relationship deteriorates," Snoep said.