Thematic Tour

The Photographs of Eduard Arning

With Christina Wild and Martin Dusinberre
6 Mar 2018 | Johann Jacobs Museum

Brought to Hawai’i to study leprosy, dermatologist and amateur ethnographer dr. Eduard Arning returned to Hamburg with one of the largest collections of ethnographic objects and photographs to leave the Pacific World in the 19th Century. This thematic tour will trace the fabrications, circulations, and transformations of Arning’s photographs of Japanese immigrants in the time and space between their original conception as ethnographic evidence, their transformation in Joseph D. Strong’s monumental painting, their reconception as art photography, their fabrication in the embroidery of Aiko Tezuka, and reconstruction within the exhibition space.

In cooperation with the Chair for Global History, University of Zurich and the Chair for East Asian Art History, University of Zurich.

Thematic tour in the exhibition A Painting for the Emperor: Japanese Labourers on Sugar Plantations in Hawai’i.