Der gesammelte Joest

An oar from Guyana, a wicker box from Sulawesi, a pearl belt from the Ilha de Moçambique, an album full of business cards, newspaper clippings: all objects that reflect the life of Wilhelm Joest: born in 1852, he was one of the many travellers, collectors and photographers of the 19th century. As a wealthy independent researcher with his own interests and the founder of the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum collection in Cologne, he was part of the network surrounding the founding director of the Berlin Museum of Ethnology, Adolf Bastian, and the polymath Rudolf Virchow. Joest himself was one of the second tier, driven by always wanting to get away - and above all not to be bored. It wasn't until he was 30 that he finally found a reason to live this life in ethnology: He travelled, collected objects, researched - and wrote about it. In his dense diaries, in reports that he sent to newspapers while travelling, in travel books that became bestsellers, and in letters and carefully researched scientific texts. In 1896, he set off for the South Seas, indefinitely. A childhood dream. Joest was never to return from this journey.

Anne Haeming sketches a multi-perspective picture of a man and his time, which was characterised by contradictions and imperial striving for power. She recounts a life between travelling, researching, collecting and everyday life in Berlin between museums, auction houses, pubs and the Tiergarten district. In doing so, she draws attention to the tragic connections between colonialism, ethnographic objects, careerism and national politics.