Interior Walk - Bringing the Tropics into the House “Away to the west are the grooves of mango trees round Libreville; mango trees are only pretty when you are close to them, prettiest of all when you are walking through an avenue of them, and you can see their richness of colour; the deep myrtle-green leaves, with the young shoots a dull crimson, and the soft gray-brown stem, and the luscious-looking but turpentiny-tasting fruit, a glory of gold and crimson, like an immense nectarine.” Mary Kingsley TRAVELS IN WEST AFRICA, 1897 With the construction of conservatories in the Victorian 19th century, exotic plants were offered a sanctuary in western culture. In addition, the Victorian conservatory functioned as a kind of showroom for imported exotic and tropical plants. Displayed under optimal conditions they were considered prestige objects for upper class Victorian society. On one hand there was a fascination and curiosity for the exotic but on the other hand the exotic was perceived as a threat to the western world. This led to an appropriation of the foreign, which found its expression in the fondness for rare and tropical plants, as well as in the collection of fetish objects such as African masks and sculptures. Eventually this became particularly evident in the Great Exhibition, the world exhibition of 1851 in Crystal Palace, London. When looking at interior advertisements in US “Architectural Digest” magazines from the 1970’s, I still recognize a longing for the exotic, non-western countries. Thus, in a figurative sense another appropriation of the foreign. Interior Walk depicts a juxtaposition of interior ad’s from the 1970s with photos of front gardens in the Santa Monica district of Los Angeles from 2016, supplemented by my own statements.