JAJ is a 2m x 4m watercolour and ink mural commissioned by the Stiftung Humboldt Forum. It tells the story of a young Norwegian explorer, Johan Adrian Jacobsen (1853-1947), who was hired in 1881 by Adolf Bastian, then-director of Berlin’s Ethnological Museum, to travel to North America’s northern Pacific coast.
Jacobsen returned to Berlin with approximately 1,000 artefacts from Yahgulanaas’ home archipelago of Haida Gwaii. Some of those artefacts were made by Yahgulanaas’ great-grandparents, and they are still in the museum’s collections today.
Caption: JAJ, 2022. Watercolour and ink on Kozo washi paper. Collection of the Humboldt Forum, Berlin.
