Colonial contexts

Museum Natur und Mensch Freiburg is once again to receive funding from the German Lost Art Foundation

In Jan­uary 2023, the Mu­se­um Natur und Men­sch Freiburg start­ed to un­der­take more in-depth prove­nance re­search in­to items in its eth­no­log­i­cal col­lec­tion by launch­ing a project en­ti­tled Die S.M.S. Cor­moran, deutsche ‚Straf­ex­pe­di­tio­nen‘ in Ozeanien und die Eth­nol­o­gis­che Samm­lung des Mu­se­ums Natur und Men­sch. Zum Zusam­men­hang von Kolo­nial­is­mus und dem Sam­meln von Ethno­graphi­ka (“The S.M.S. Cor­moran, Ger­man ‘puni­tive ex­pe­di­tions’ in Ocea­nia and the eth­no­log­i­cal col­lec­tion of the Mu­se­um Natur und Men­sch.

On the con­nec­tion be­tween colo­nial­ism and the col­lect­ing of ethno­graph­ics”). Fund­ing for the project is pro­vid­ed in the form of a grant award­ed by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion. The mu­se­um’s eth­no­log­i­cal col­lec­tion com­pris­es al­most 3,000 ob­jects from Ocea­nia, more than 1,200 of which found their way to the mu­se­um dur­ing the pe­ri­od of Ger­man colo­nial rule.

A project to digi­tise the Ocea­nia col­lec­tion was car­ried out in 2017/2018, with much of this now hav­ing been pub­lished in the on­line col­lec­tion of the Städtis­che Museen Freiburg. This pre­lim­i­nary work forms the point of de­par­ture for the cur­rent project, which is it­self di­vid­ed in­to two parts. The first deals with the col­lec­tors Paul Wer­ber and Wal­ter Brandt, who col­lect­ed ethno­graph­ic ob­jects as crew mem­bers of the S.M.S. Cor­moran, a cruis­er that be­longed to the Im­pe­ri­al Ger­man Navy. The sec­ond part of the project is con­cerned with fun­da­men­tal re­search and con­tex­tu­al re­search: here the fo­cus is on the voy­ages un­der­tak­en by the navy ves­sel, and its par­tic­i­pa­tion in so-called ‘puni­tive ex­pe­di­tions’ and oth­er mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ties. Col­lect­ing by crew mem­bers dur­ing Ger­man colo­nial rule in Ocea­nia will al­so be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

The aim is to es­tab­lish the cir­cum­stances of ac­qui­si­tion, ori­gin and sig­nif­i­cance of the col­lect­ed ob­jects as well as their his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tion with the ‘puni­tive ex­pe­di­tions’ un­der­tak­en by S.M.S. Cor­moran to­geth­er with part­ners from the so­ci­eties of ori­gin. In ad­di­tion, ethno­graph­ic hold­ings from Ocea­nia that are linked to mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ties in which the ship was in­volved are to be iden­ti­fied in oth­er col­lec­tions and mu­se­ums in Ger­many and the find­ings com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the mem­bers of the so­ci­eties con­cerned.

Any­one who is able to pro­vide any in­for­ma­tion or in­di­ca­tions re­gard­ing the his­to­ry of the S.M.S. Cor­moran and her crew mem­bers, please con­tact: prove­nien­z­forschung-mnm@stadt.freiburg.de
For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, see www.freiburg.de/sms-cor­moran