Ex Hibited

In the summer of 1898, a human zoo called Kampong Insulinde was set up at the corner of Stadhouderslaan and Scheveningseweg in The Hague, as part of the National Exhibition of Women's Labour. People were literally put on display, observed and studied. Among them was a woman from Java, whose name was never preserved in Dutch records. What did survive was her likeness: sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa made a portrait bust of her in 1898.

Bust of a woman from Java at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag

That bust, Buste van een vrouw van Java (1898), is at the heart of Ex Hibited. The museum poses a difficult question: how do you exhibit an image of someone who was once exhibited herself, without repeating the colonial gaze? The exhibition deliberately takes the woman's own perspective as its starting point, rather than that of the historical spectator.

Research into colonial heritage in museum collections

Ex Hibited reaches beyond a single object or moment. The bust serves as a key to a broader inquiry: how has the colonial past been recorded, what has been left out, and what traces remain in Dutch museum collections today? The museum aims to open up a wider conversation about heritage, representation and responsibility.

Curator Iris Tjoa, who has spent years researching Kampong Insulinde and is recognised as an expert on human zoos, provides the scholarly foundation for the exhibition.