Following an initial presentation at the Swiss National Museum in Zurich, Château de Prangins plays host to an adapted version of an exhibition that sheds light on Switzerland's colonial past and its modern-day ramifications. Drawing on the latest advances in academic research, it employs a wide range of written sources, objects, works of art and photographs.

Although Switzerland never possessed any colonies in the strict sense of the word, Swiss people -- both individually and collectively -- and Swiss companies were directly implicated in Europe's colonial expansion. Colonial. Switzerland's Global Entanglements explores this long-overlooked chapter in the nation's history. 

The exhibition consists of two parts. The first examines various examples of Swiss involvement in numerous colonial contexts from America to Asia and Africa, beginning in the 16th century. It traces the careers and development of Swiss individuals and structures that took part in the transatlantic trade in enslaved people, and made their fortunes dealing in goods produced by slave labour. 

Other examples include Swiss men and women who travelled to faraway places as missionaries, or left their homeland and established colonies to populate and exploit land seized from indigenous populations, some of whom were wiped out. Fleeing poverty or lured by the promise of adventure, thousands served as mercenaries in European armies that engaged in bloody conquests. In Switzerland, written and visual testimonies from the colonies shaped public opinion on the populations of those regions, disseminating and reinforcing racist stereotypes. Universities in Geneva and Zurich expounded racial theories that were taken up internationally. Constructing a hierarchy of peoples, they sought to confer scientific legitimacy on a system of domination on a global scale. This panorama gives prominence to examples and leading figures from French-speaking Switzerland such as Carl Vogt, David de Pury, the Swiss Mission, the de Meuron regiment of mercenaries and the abolitionist S. B. L. Frossard.

The second part of the exhibition investigates the significance of the colonial legacy to modern-day Switzerland and its global consequences: structural racism, unequal distribution of wealth, environmental problems and more. A final section invites visitors to reflect and share their views on contemporary issues containing present-day echoes of the past, such as the presence of controversial statues in the public space.