Bezoekers op de Wereldtentoonstelling van 1900 met op de achtergrond het Château d'Eau in Parijs 1900

This small photograph by Paul Lucena captures visitors at the 1900 World’s Fair with the Château d’Eau in Paris as a backdrop. The World’s Fair was a spectacle of global achievement, showcasing industrial progress and colonial power. But who got to participate in this vision of the future? Lucena’s photograph, though ostensibly documenting the event, also hints at the social stratification of the time. While the fair aimed to display unity, it also highlighted existing inequalities. The figures in the foreground, likely members of the middle or upper class, are sharply contrasted with what would have been the experiences of the working class and colonized peoples, whose labor and resources fueled the event, but who were seldom represented amongst the visitors. Consider this photograph not just as a record of a historical event, but as an invitation to reflect on the complex interplay of progress, power, and representation. It reminds us to question whose stories are told, and whose are left out.