On Independence Day 16 September 2025, Jan Hasselberg's 'Piksa Bilong Taim Bipo' exhibition was opened at the National Museum and Art Gallery (NMAG) in Port Moresby. More than 200 historical photographs taken between 1875 and 1940 from all parts of PNG (a few from the highlands are post-WWII) will be on display for a few months. The exhibition was organised on the invitation of Mr. Steven Enomb Kilanda, Director of the National Cultural Commission. Mr Alois Kuaso, Acting Director of the NMAG, opened the doors of the museum to host the exhibition.

Since September 2025, a great number of early photographs from around PNG have adorned the walls of the National Museum and Art Gallery in Port Moresby. The “Piksa Bilong Taim Bipo” exhibition offers an insight into the lives of Papua New Guineans as they were centuries or more ago. We can see sailing canoes, pot-making, feasts, dances and photos from the gardens. Of the many portraits, twenty are of named individuals. One section is titled ‘A fighting tradition’, and there is a section on ‘Colonial times’ and one on early mission buildings.

The number of photos taken in PNG during the first 50 years of contact with the world around is impressive, and if we stretch the time frame to 1940, there were photographers visiting all of the present provinces. The very first photos taken in PNG were at Manus in 1875 when British expedition ships made a short stop. Later the same year, missionary pioneer William Lawes photographed the first mission house in Port Moresby, and by 1900 all the main coastal areas of what was then British and German New Guinea were visited by people with cameras. Compared with other countries that were colonised at the time, the great wealth of early PNG photographs is indeed impressive.

What we find in the old photograph collections is also extraordinary. The photographers, being thrilled by the many colourful and interesting expressions of local culture they found in New Guinea, aimed their lenses at the local people, at houses and villages, at pot- and sago-makers, at feasts and decorations. They were convinced that much of this would be gone in just a few decades, so it had to be captured before it was too late, they thought. After 1910, when several long-staying anthropologists arrived in PNG, even more aspects of local life were photographed, all adding up to a unique visual archive which gives us an idea of what life was like four, five, or six generations ago.

Unfortunately, this unique wealth of photographs has not been easily accessible for Papua New Guineans, and most people are unaware of old photographs taken at their places and of their ancestors. The photo collections are housed in museums and other archives in Europe, Australia, and the USA, with only a few collections located in PNG’s own national institutions. However, with the rapid technological advancements of our present time, access is fortunately improving.

Jan Hasselberg is an independent PNG history researcher. After publishing the well-received ‘coffee-table’ book "Beautiful Tufi" twelve years ago, he has mainly worked with early PNG photographs. He has brought photos back to several villages in Oro, Central and Milne Bay, some of his articles can be found online on ‘ResearchGate’, and he is assisting the Massim Museum in Alotau with their exhibitions. Jan has been a regular visitor to PNG for twenty years. He lives in Bergen, Norway. Additionally Jan Hasselberg has about 2000 PNG photos on his Flickr site.

"As a photo historian, I have over the years brought early photographs to the communities where they were taken, some in Oro, some in Central, and some in Milne Bay. The response has been overwhelming, with older people recognising things they remember or have only heard about, and with the young being awed, impressed and amazed by their own history.

When being invited by Director Kilanda of the National Cultural Commission to prepare an exhibition of early photographs, I found this an excellent opportunity to expose this rich heritage in the capital, and I was equally pleased when the Theatrette at the National Museum and Art Gallery (NMAG) was proposed as venue by the museum’s director Mr. Kuaso. The 230 photographs now exhibited the NMAG have been generously supplied by the many archives abroad (and two in PNG). There are photos from all PNG’s provinces, and almost all are from before 1940, with many from around or before 1900. The exhibition will be up for some months and maybe longer, and our hope is that many, both old and young, will have a chance to see them."