Ships as Communication Vessels: Photographic Travels into the Polynesian Sea

Abstract

Abstract Beginning in 1889, Emperor Wilhelm ii of the German Empire intensified shipbuilding in order to secure the German Empire colonies around the globe, including the colony of ‘Deutschland-Neuguinea’. This article investigates the ship as a vessel of transcultural communication in the conflicting histories of German colonialism. On the one hand, ships encountered foreign territories, and expanded German trade markets, while simultaneously prompting curiosity to learn about foreign and ‘exotic’ cultures. On the other hand, a belief in Western superiority that led to massive repression of indigenous people cast a shadow over the process of getting to know ‘the other’. Sailors not only implemented the Empire’s seek for new territories and maintained colonial ‘order’ in occupied countries, but also led to a second blossoming of travel photography. Taking up the ‘Kodakification’ of the world, understood as growing accessibility of different camera types, seamen acted as amateur photographers and brought home a kaleidoscope of impressions of the outer rims of the empire. This article discusses the photographic travel albums of crewmembers of the German gunboat S.M.S. Bussard in the collection of the German Maritime Museum Bremerhaven. The seamen’s photographic perspective created a specific visual commemoration of German colonialism on the intersection of love of travel and the concept of white supremacy. In this regard, the battleship steamer S.M.S. Bussard serves as a conflicted medium, in that it enabled transcultural contact, but most importantly was used as a military weapon to defeat the indigenous’ uprising against Western colonialization.