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Kunstmuseum Den Haag has a treasure chamber of over 160.000 pieces of art. Here we work on making the highlights from this collection available online.
How does one exhibit a portrait of someone who was once exhibited themselves under colonial rule? Kunstmuseum Den Haag explores this question in the presentation Ex Hibited. At its heart is Bust of a Woman from Java (1898), a study portrait by Dutch sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa of a woman whose name has not survived in Dutch records. In the summer of 1898, she was exhibited in ‘Kampong Insulinde’, a human zoo at the National Exhibition of Women’s Labour (1898). The exhibition took place at the corner of Stadhouderslaan and Scheveningseweg in The Hague, within walking distance of the present-day Kunstmuseum.
Ex Hibited revisits Kampong Insulinde, placing this human zoo in its historical context from the perspective of the woman on display. Taking the bust as its point of departure, the exhibition considers how the colonial past was recorded and explores how its heritage continues to shape Dutch museum collections today. In doing so, the museum hopes to start a conversation with a wider public about a little-known chapter of The Hague’s history. To this end, Kunstmuseum Den Haag is collaborating with Iris Tjoa, an expert on human zoos who has spent many years researching Kampong Insulinde.
Human zoo
In 1898, Kampong Insulinde was built on the ground of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labour. This so-called ‘kampong’ was an enclosed ‘village’ made up of reconstructed buildings from different parts of the former Dutch East Indies. A group of 37 people from Java were exhibited there. Throughout the summer of 1898, they were exposed to the gaze of thousands of visitors every day.
Kampong Insulinde was a human zoo. This practice of exhibiting people became widespread in Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century. People from colonised territories, including The Dutch East Indies, Suriname, and various parts of Africa, were brought to the Netherlands and exhibited for the entertainment of predominantly white audiences.
This text was produced with contributions from Iris Tjoa.
Ex Hibited – Bust of a Woman from Java is on view at Kunstmuseum Den Haag from 19 September 2026 through 23 May 2027.
