Part 3. Guess who

La Ville en chantier exhibition

Case 12, Camp de la Transportation, 22 June 2018

Saint Laurent du Maroni did not exist as a colonial town before the arrival of the Administration Penitentiaire. This is, of course, not to imply an absence of life or community but rather better understand the legacy of the bagne on the area’s present-day infrastructure. As will be discussed in several posts about SLM, the Camp de la Transportation is a complex site which perhaps provides a starting point for understanding penal heritage as multi-sited not exceptional. The Camp de la Transportation is a hub for multiple different community-led activities which exist both separately from but also draw on the site’s history. This is especially clear in the history of the library.

Another example is the ‘La Ville en chantier’ exhibition located in Case 12. The exhibition is located on the two floors of the Case, one of the former dormitories where convicts sent out to work in and around SLM and neighbouring forest camps would return to sleep at night. The exhibition charts the evolution of the town and the surrounding area from before the arrival of the A.P. until (almost) present day (2011). The exhibition uses a range of different but low-fi techniques to visualise the space including giant floor maps and scale models (more on this from CR).

My attention was drawn to a customised ‘Guess Who’ game. Instead of people, each card featured a different building. We had been discussing how different activities and indeed games might constitute a way to explain the multisited and complex nature of the bagne to different audiences. I’ve been toying with the idea of a Top Trumps style card game of famous and less famous convicts, guards, doctors and other individuals associated with the history of the penal colony in French Guiana. I’ve also been thinking a bit about a board game charting the journey of the bagnards from deportation to repatriation via failed escapes, réclusion and doublage. This draws on conversations I’ve had with various colleagues in French Studies around colonial board games. However, the idea of Guess Who didn’t occur to me and yet now seems like a great way to engage people of different ages both local and visitors from elsewhere in thinking about architecture and looking more closely at buildings one might pass by or take for granted. The type of questions one might ask one’s opponent would vary according to your collective knowledge and thus range from the basic visual markers shown on the photographs to more complex historical and personal references. If we have time to revisit the exhibition before we leave French Guiana at the end of next week then I will challenge CR to a game!