Pip­pi’s dad and the true sto­ry from the Pa­ci­fic — in­sights in­to co­lo­ni­al rea­li­ties at MARKK

At the “Mu­se­um am Ro­then­baum MARKK” in Ham­burg, vi­si­tors can ex­pe­ri­ence an ex­tra­or­di­na­ry ex­hi­bi­ti­on en­tit­led “Pip­pi’s Dad and a re­al­ly true sto­ry from the Pa­ci­fic” un­til 30 Ju­ne 2027. The start­ing point is the fa­mous child­ren’s book cha­rac­ter Pip­pi Long­sto­cking and her fa­ther Efra­im, the king of Ta­ka-Tu­ka Land — a fan­ta­sy world that has in­spi­red ge­ne­ra­ti­ons. But the ex­hi­bi­ti­on ta­kes a look be­hind the fa­ca­de: was the­re re­al­ly a “South Sea King” from Swe­den? The bio­gra­phy of Carl Pet­ters­son, who stran­ded on the Ta­bar Is­lands in the Pa­ci­fic af­ter a ship­w­reck, foun­ded co­co­nut plan­ta­ti­ons and built a fa­mi­ly wi­th his Pa­ci­fic wi­fe Sing­do, reve­als as­to­nis­hing par­al­lels to the sto­ries in the Pip­pi books. Pet­ters­son’s child­ren grew up un­der co­lo­ni­al in­fluence and chal­len­ging edu­ca­tio­nal me­thods — a mir­ror for the his­to­ri­cal uphe­avals and ent­an­gle­ments that lie hid­den in Ger­man co­lo­nia­lism.

The ex­hi­bi­ti­on de­li­bera­te­ly fo­cu­ses on playful and in­ter­ac­ti­ve ele­ments for child­ren and fa­mi­lies and in­vi­tes them to ta­ke a cri­ti­cal and cu­rious look at the co­lo­ni­al plan­ta­ti­on sys­tem and the trade re­la­ti­ons bet­ween the is­lands of the Bis­marck Ar­chi­pe­la­go and Ham­burg. It en­cou­ra­ges re­flec­tion on to­day’s ap­proach to co­lo­ni­al world views in child­ren’s li­te­ra­tu­re and opens up new per­spec­ti­ves on fa­mi­li­ar fi­gu­res. The ex­pe­ri­ence is com­ple­men­ted by dia­lo­gue-ba­sed edu­ca­tio­nal ac­ti­vi­ties such as gui­ded tours and work­shops, which can be in­di­vi­du­al­ly tail­o­red to dif­fe­rent age groups.