Oniric bestiary
A stone’s throw from the ultra-modern business district of La Défense, on the island of Levallois, I was surprised to come across an old-fashioned marquee under which an exhibition of prehistoric animals was held for children. Despite a few commercial billboards, the exhibition had nothing to do with technology. Under large plastic tarpaulins, life-size reconstructions of around thirty pterodactyls, triceratops, brachiosaurus, tyrannosaurus and other critters from before the flood were exhibited on sorts of rudimentary scenes crudely lit by spotlights in summary decorations of vegetation composed of wallpapers and some potted plants. Non-digital information panels delivered in a few lines the essentials of the beast represented. The highlight was all the same the staging of this bestiary in the frightening form of fights, huge mouths open on sharks’ teeth, all giving the idea that the state of nature in those distant times was that of a between permanent devouring. The struggle for life!
