The Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale, in a remote corner of the Bois de Vincennes, is a ghostly setting, haunted by the spirits of France’s colonial past. The opposite of a typical French garden, it is instead disquieting in its wildness with only a few pathways kept clear of grasses, bushes and creeping branches.

These are not the gardens of a haunted house, but of a series of haunted houses. Nature has taken over now, winding its hands and fingers through a hamlet of crumbling buildings, but enough of the structures remain to give a blurred snapshot of what took place here before. This garden is the setting for a colonial exhibition from over 100 years ago, and a place that remained out of the public eye for most of the 20th century.

Today the public has free access to the gardens, but few people seem to visit. Being alone in this environment heightens the sensation of anxiety, leaving visitors to only guess at the reasons for the collapse and decay. Entrance is through a Chinese portico, the crumbling and fading red paint indicating the state of sights to come. From here you can follow a series of paths, all of which lead to ruined buildings, beheaded statues and mysterious, unexplained objects.

Research will tell you that these are the remains of the 1907 Exposition Coloniale, but signs explaining this in the garden are all sun-faded or have fallen down. What remains clear is that this is not an environment of which the authorities are particularly proud. Instead its decline can be seen as an interesting physical metaphor for French colonial politics.
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