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A double-hulled boat from Fiji will also be on display at the Humboldt Forum. The so-called Drua is currently being built on the islands of Viti Levu and Ogea Levu in co-operation with the Fiji National University and Fijian boat builders using traditional techniques. Next year, the individual parts will be shipped to Berlin and assembled at the Humboldt Forum. Together with the other boats from Oceania, the Drua will provide an impressive experience of the Pacific people's relationship with the sea. Children will be able to walk, climb and explore the Drua as part of the junior areas.

Islands and atolls make up only a few per cent of the total area of Oceania, the rest is marine territory. The fact that the Pacific has nevertheless always had a connecting function is due to the region's high level of boatbuilding expertise. The boats from Oceania, which were moved from the Ethnological Museum in Dahlem to the Humboldt Forum in spring, are an impressive illustration of this. They will now be ideally complemented by a Fijian double-hulled sailing boat.

The Polynesians once used double-hulled boats to explore the East Pacific, travelling to and settling on distant islands. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the more manoeuvrable Fijian boats with hulls of different lengths replaced their predecessors with hulls of the same length. In Fiji, the double-hulled boats used to be an important means of transport between the islands for trading and maintaining social relations.

The Drua that has now been acquired is a replica of a thirteen metre long double-hulled boat from 1913, which is now on display in the maritime exhibition of the Fiji Museum in the capital Suva on the main island of Viti Levu. A few weeks ago in Suva, Hans-Dieter Hegner, Chairman of the Humboldt Forum Foundation at the Berlin Palace, and Joji Marau Misaele from the Fiji National University's School of Engineering signed a contract for the purchase and construction of the boat in the presence of Lars-Christian Koch, Director of the Collections of the National Museums in Berlin at the Humboldt Forum.

For Hans-Dieter Hegner, it is a stroke of luck that Mr Joji Marau Misaele and his team could be won over for the replica of the Drua: "At the Humboldt Forum, we will be able to present a boat that is made using traditional techniques and whose manufacturing process we have accompanied and documented from the very beginning." Lars-Christian Koch is also delighted with the acquisition of the boat: "We will use the traditionally constructed double-hulled boat for educational and communication purposes in particular."

Production of the boat has already begun in Fiji. By the end of January, local craftsmen on the small rainforest island of Ogea, 300 kilometres away, will be cutting the required wood - damanu (Callophyllum vitiense) and vesi (Intsia bijuga) - under the direction of Joji Marau Misaele. They use these to make the two hulls and the planks and transport them to the island of Viti Levu. By the end of April 2019, they will have completed the remaining boat parts there and assembled the Drua once for testing before dismantling the boat back into its individual parts for transport in a shipping container to Berlin.

In June and July 2019, the Fijians will assemble the Drua at the Humboldt Forum. The individual parts will be traditionally joined together with a magimagi, a string made of coconut fibre. After the opening of the Humboldt Forum, visitors will be able to marvel at the approximately 2.70 metre wide and 10 metre long Drua in the foyer of the southern exhibition cube. Children and young people can even climb on the sailing boat as part of the junior areas via a wave-shaped entrance. Virtual reality goggles will help to transport young explorers into the world of navigation.

With the Humboldt Forum, a new cultural quarter will be created in the centre of Berlin at the end of 2019. The project partners are the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) with the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art of the National Museums in Berlin (SMB), Kulturprojekte Berlin and the Stadtmuseum Berlin, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) and the Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace. The Humboldt Forum is already present with a diverse programme of exhibitions, discussions, performances, workshops, films and artistic interventions.

Further information can be found in the Humboldt Forum dossier and at humboldtforum.com

Drua Fijian double-hulled sailing boat

Model Drua from 1913 in the Fiji Museum, Suva, Fiji Islands

Dimensions Size longer hull: 10 metres, shorter hull 9 metres; width approx. 2.70 metres.

Components Deck platform (rara), deck hut (vale) and superstructure, mast (vana), triangular mat sail (laca) with rigging, two yards (kariaki), two rudders (uli), two oars (sua), a pole for staking (kara) and two oil drums (nima) as well as coconut fibre cord bindings (magimagi).

Commissioned by Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss in co-operation with the Ethnological Museum of the National Museums in Berlin.

Contractor / Project management Fiji Joji Marau Misaele, Head of School, School of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Science and Technology, Fiji National University, Samabula, Suva, Fiji