Node / express / ejs / Uncaught SyntaxError: missing ] after element list

I’m running a express server and render a list.
This is the code of the route:

try {
    let result = await servCollections.prepareDataForListCollections();
    let colls = result.data;
    let messages = result.messages;
    res.render('../views/pages/listcollections', { daten: colls, mess: messages });
} catch (err) {
    console.error(`Error while getting collections `, err.message);
    next(err);
}

In my ejs view I want to pass the mess variable to a javascript function like so:

<main>  

<script>populateMultiMessages( <%= mess %> )</script> 

Then I got the above error, which I can`t understand. Here is the content from mess in a debugger view:
debug window of array messages