Imperialism has had an extensive effect on the world around us where its influence still ripples in today’s society. The crystal palace text shows the connection between humans and commodities and the how the crystal palace had created an extraordinary shopping experience. However with the Decolonizing methodologies book written by Linda Tuhiwai Smith has given us a deeper understanding of the struggles of the indigenous people and how their land was taken and colonised to way of the western civilisation.
Through the production of The Crystal Palace, Joseph Paxton, the designer of the beautiful structure was able to use his ability to absorb and apply, emerging his high gardening skills with architecture in order to create a worldwide known building, its structure resembling a lily leaf, inspiring shopping centres and museums around the world. Paxton had created the ideal shopping experience connecting human with commodities in an environment giving the illusion of infinity, having no longer an exterior or interior to the building , as you are able to see into the crystal palace from the outside and being able to see the outside from the inside creating an interaction between nature and the arcade.
On the other hand, even though Paxton’s work was a masterpiece which inspired many, once reading the second text on imperialism and colonialism by Linda Tuhiwai Smith we are exposed to the massive side effects of imperialism and the strength in which the British Empire enforced onto the indigenous people. The great exhibition displays many artefacts, a collection of fragments of the world’s history mainly which had been stolen from those subjugated under colonialism, where those objects also carry their own histories of the indigenous people, ones of suffering and pain. Due to the forceful colonialism the indigenous people’s stories couldn’t be heard. This forced the indigenous people to struggle against a western view of history, watching them ignore their culture and seeing their history disappear.
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Museums, such as the great exhibition, use a systematic order when placing pieces of the world in order to tell the story of our history; this is known as systematic fragmentation. In the great exhibition British imperialist use the placement of the objects showcase their version of history placing them as the heroic finders of these exotic lands and allowing them to select what knowledge should be passed down and including what counts to be a part of the world’s history . Disregarding any part of history when concerning the indigenous people of the land as they were considered as only half human, incapable of creating, inventing, imagine or produce anything of value, and the history was for the fully human. The indigenous have often allowed for their storied to be told by a western, bias point of view. However it is not our job as non- indigenous people to tell their stories but to listen and understand
