Les statues de l'escalier de la Gare Saint-Charles

How does Marseille’s colonial past shape the urban landscape?

On 14 December 2022, the monumental staircase leading to Saint-Charles railway station, along with its gardens, was listed as a Historic Monument by the State. That same year, 100 years after Marseille’s 1922 colonial exhibition, citizen-led mobilizations questioned the traces left by the colonial legacy in Marseille’s public spaces. The statuary on the Saint-Charles station steps, a gathering place for anti-racist, feminist and decolonial activists, has been a particular focus. The colonial allegories of Asia and Africa there are criticized for their role in universal domination and the perpetuation of racial prejudice in local and national historical narratives. Yet on these steps, in front of these statues, there is nothing to explain what might be disturbing to people.

This is the purpose of the exhibition: to shed light on the context in which the staircase was built and its decorative program was created.

A dossier exhibition presented as part of the Mars Imperium project: a web portal providing an overview of current knowledge and debates on the colonial and post-colonial history of Marseille.

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