Arriving from Paris by train, I descend the monumental staircase at Marseille’s Saint-Charles station – a vast, theatrical sweep of stone that carries passengers not only into the heart of the city but across layers of buried history. The station itself was built atop the former Saint-Charles cemetery, a sprawling necropolis where the city’s dead were interred until the mid-19th century. Unfurling in broad, symmetrical flights, the staircase is flanked by ornate lampposts and an array of statuary designed to impress upon visitors the vision of Marseille as France’s imperial gateway to the Mediterranean and beyond. At its base, flanking the balustrades, stand allegorical female nudes – including Louis Botinelly’s Colonies d’Asie and Colonies d’Afrique (1923–24) – representing the nation’s imperial holdings, their classical poses cloaking the brutal realities of colonial domination. In 2020, Julien Creuzet performed Playlist for a Colonial Monument on this staircase, countering the 20th-century imperialist propaganda with thumping pop music in a gesture of refusal.
