Mattias Bäckström | Norwegian University of Science and Technology (original) (raw)

Monographs by Mattias Bäckström

Att bygga innehåll med utställningar. Utställningsproduktion som forskningsprocess. Lund: Nordic Academic Press (299 pages), 2021

How do you conduct research in and by means of exhibition productions? How do you study and analy... more How do you conduct research in and by means of exhibition productions? How do you study and analyse exhibitions from a museological and idea-historical perspective? These initial questions highlight the main themes of my scholarly monograph: 1) the research that I propose can be conducted in and by means of exhibition productions by combining critical-reflective studies and inter-knowledge exhibition making; 2) the historical and theoretical studies of the ideas and practices of exhibiting in and outside of museums. These themes constitute in turn the focal points of my study of exhibition-specific research, the monograph’s key concept; that is, the theoretical, historical and organisational foundation of exhibition production as research process. In the book, I show how essayistic exhibition-specific research can be established as a critically reflected and sensuously conscious mode of inter-knowledge collaboration. This kind of research collaboration takes into account its participating interpreters, their organisation of the research work, and the specific characteristics of the exhibition as medium.

The monograph is located partly in the context of media history and museology, partly in the inter-disciplinary field of exhibitions as research, with closely related research practices, like museum research, exhibition studies, curatorial work, practical knowledge and participatory design. It was reissued in a new edition in April 2021: ISBN 978-91-88909-99-2

Att bygga innehåll med utställningar. Utställningsproduktion som forskningsprocess, Lund: Nordic Academic Press (298 pages), 2016

Scholarly monograph, published by Nordic Academic Press (print book in 2016, e-book in 2017, new ... more Scholarly monograph, published by Nordic Academic Press (print book in 2016, e-book in 2017, new print in 2021; 298 pages) and by MTM Swedish Agency for Accessible Media (audio book in 2018; 16 h 15 min). The introductory chapter (in Swedish) is accessible on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/48889103/

Hjärtats härdar. Folkliv, folkmuseer och minnesmärken i Skandinavien, 1808–1907 (PhD thesis), Möklinta: Gidlunds förlag (372 pages), 2012

PhD thesis in History of Science and Ideas at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Published b... more PhD thesis in History of Science and Ideas at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Published by Gidlunds förlag, 2012 (372 pages).

This PhD thesis (doktorsavhandling) deals with the new view of landscapes, buildings and artefacts as significant, memory-bearing structures that emerged in the nineteenth century. It examines the new memory-bearing visibility, i.e. the human-shaped reality as a bearer of memory, and it also analyses the new notion of the people (folk) and its ways of seeing; in other words, a new subject that creates its own history and society. Finally, it examines the synthesis of a new kind of knowledge that became institutionalised in historical and ethnographical museums and subsequently in folk museums. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the historical memorial was a new object that was to be researched and appraised from both an artistic and a scientific perspective. The people in its incarnation of folk life represented, in its turn, a new, higher phase of human development, in terms of a historical-idealistic concept of stages, one that made possible the new vision of the artist as well as of the museum curator and the scientist and their studies of the historical memorial. The folk museum, finally, was one of the new institutions in the second half of the nineteenth century, where the museum curator synthesised his observations and constructed knowledge of the historical memorial, and also employed this knowledge in folk educational, socio-moral museum activities in order to elevate the fragmented population to this new, harmonious and national-individual folk life.

The thesis consists of three main sections that reflect the above division. The purpose of the first section, ‘Historical memorials’, is to furnish an overarching description of how different nuances of nineteenth-century memory-bearing visibility arose and were transformed in Denmark, Norway and Sweden; more specifically, the aesthetic, scientific, historical, social and national dimensions of the historical memorial. The relationship that is described and analysed is primarily that between knowledge-acquiring subjects and objects of knowledge. The purpose of the second section, ‘Folk life’, is to analyse in detail the contemporary epistemological views with respect to memory-bearing visibility of reality, limited, however, to the closest ideational contexts of the folk museum; the relationship under study is thus the one between the knowledge-acquiring subject and notions of knowledge. The purpose of the third section, ‘Folk museums’, is to describe how the museum curators in actual practice made use of the historical memorial and the new artistic, scientific and economic approaches, in order to synthesise knowledge and apply it in their folk educational activities at the folk museums.

Papers by Mattias Bäckström

Breaking Boundaries! Museum Education as Research. Line Engen (ed.). Trondheim: Museumsforlaget (pp. 155–161), 2023

In this chapter, the concept of the ‘exhibition as essay’ is discussed in order to understand the... more In this chapter, the concept of the ‘exhibition as essay’ is discussed in order to understand the kind of research that is possible to conduct in and by means of exhibitions. During the last decades, two research fields have been established: the curatorial and the exhibition as research. Epistemological work has been done by critics, curators and educators in the art and museum sectors, by researchers in traditional museum disciplines like anthropology, archaeology and art history, as well as by researchers in interdisciplinary research fields like museology, science and technology studies, and artistic, design and practice research. Locating my chapter in the research fields of the curatorial and the exhibition as research, I begin with an outline of central ideas and concepts in these fields. I then highlight and further develop key research results from my scholarly monograph ‘Att bygga innehåll med utställningar. Utställningsproduktion som forskningsprocess’ (Bäckström 2016/2021, To Build Content with Exhibitions. Exhibition Production as Research Process). In my monograph, I thoroughly discuss the exhibition as essay as form and method for collaborative research in and by means of exhibitions, that is, for exhibition-specific research.

Spreng grensene! Når formidling blir forskning. Line Engen (red.). Trondheim: Museumsforlaget (s. 29–40), 2023

Västergötlands fornminnesförenings tidskrift 2021–2022 / The Journal of Västergötland Ancient Monuments Association 2021–2022 (pp. 11–23), 2022

The idea of the open-air museum is older than the established open-air museums. I begin my chapte... more The idea of the open-air museum is older than the established open-air museums. I begin my chapter in the biannual journal with a survey of the oldest open-air museums, which were established in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany in the period 1881–1899. I then present some early ideas of the open-air museum articulated in texts in the period 1793–1881, that is, ideas preceding the established open-air museums. There are two main discussions in my chapter: firstly, how museum curators joined empirical-evolutionary scholarly views and ideal-realistic aesthetic ideals with vernacular buildings and furniture when making their historical room interiors at museums of cultural history and museum cottages at open-air museums; secondly, how museum curators and museum assistants applied and changed these scholarly and aesthetic concepts in and by means of their open-air museum activities in the 1880s and 1890s. Hence, I discuss the following questions in this chapter: Which are the oldest open-air museums? Which ideas about the open-air museum did ethnologists, building historians and museum curators articulate during the second half of the nineteenth century? How did museum curators and museum assistants build their historical room interiors and open-air museum cottages by joining current scholarly views and aesthetic ideals with vernacular buildings and historical household goods and furnishings?

Nordic Museology (pp. 141–147), No 2, 2022

Tilde Strandbygaard Jessen, PhD at the RUC Roskilde University in Denmark, has written a very int... more Tilde Strandbygaard Jessen, PhD at the RUC Roskilde University in Denmark, has written a very interesting PhD thesis in History, which is well worth reading: Fortid i og for nutid. Levendegørelser som formidlings- og oplevelsesform gennem 100 år (Past times in and for present times. Living history practices as forms of communication and experience during a century, PhD thesis in Danish, with English summary). More specifically, Jessen has situated her thesis at the intersection between history didactics and museum history.

Jessen’s PhD thesis has five main chapters and a concise conclusion. In chapter 1, Jessen presents her research question and the overall research design and elaborates on theoretical and methodological issues. The following three chapters, i.e. chapter 2–4, are source-based case studies. In chapter 2, Jessen analyses two principal debates in Denmark: the 1897 debate on open-air museums and living history practices, and the 1963 debate on tourism and living history practices. Chapter 3 deals with the spectator forms of living history activities at two open-air museums in Denmark: Hjerl Hede, opened in 1930 near the town Skive in Jutland, and the Funen Village, opened in 1946 in Odense. In chapter 4, Jessen focuses on the participant forms of living history activities at the Centre for Historical-Archaeological Research and Communication, an archaeological open-air museum opened in 1964 in Lejre. Finally in chapter 5, Jessen conducts a comparative analysis of living history activities at museums and museumlike institutions in Denmark between 1897 and 1980. Jessen ends her thesis with a short conclusion.

This review of Jessen’s PhD thesis is written by the members of the assessment committee and opponents at the PhD defence at the RUC Roskilde University on 23 March 2022. In our opinion, Jessen’s PhD thesis is an independent and well-structured research work. Her thesis is a significant contribution to the field of museum history. With her thesis, Jessen also contributes to the wider discussion on historical reenactment, drama pedagogy and experimental archaeology.

Nordic Museology (pp. 85–91), No 1, 2022

Robert Thavenius, PhD Candidate in Art History at the Lund University in Sweden, has written the ... more Robert Thavenius, PhD Candidate in Art History at the Lund University in Sweden, has written the licentiate thesis Nationalmuseum som konsekrerande institution 1890–1920 (The Nationalmuseum as consecrating institution 1890–1920). In his thesis, Thavenius presents a compilation of the museum officials and ordinary members and deputies in the museum board and the procurement board of the Nationalmuseum during the period 1890–1920. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and Göran Therborn’s class theory, he conducts an analysis of the social backgrounds and positions of the museum curators and the board members. In the period 1890–1912, for example, a group from the aristocracy was very influential in the procurement board, but after the reorganisation in 1913 the Nationalmuseum was professionalized; from then on, decisions to procure art works were taken by the museum director and three museum curators.

As faculty opponent at the licentiate seminar on 3 June 2021, I highlighted that Thavenius’s theoretical presentation of Bourdieuian key concepts, like class, fraction, habitus, consecration and symbolic capital, are clear and concise. Furthermore, I expanded on my opinion that the licentiate thesis should include theoretical discussions on art sociology and museology, as these research field are pertinent to the research work undertaken. I also pointed out that the thesis mainly deals with a compilation of the officials at the museum and in the boards, and an analysis of their social background and position, less with the phenomenon of consecrating museum officials and board members as well as artists and art works. My most important critique in the opposition was – and remains here in the present review – the lack in the licentiate thesis of a chapter with a reflective and synthesizing discussion.

A History of Participation in Museums and Archives Traversing Citizen Science and Citizen Humanities, 2020

This chapter examines ideas of museums as sites of participatory democracy and design, with a foc... more This chapter examines ideas of museums as sites of participatory democracy and design, with a focus on historical and contemporary developments in museum practices in Norway and Sweden. Relationships between research, policy, and practice frame our investigation of the ways in which participatory practices may or may not work in democratic ways. We first consider democratization aspects of crowdsourcing in a historical context, before examining how these are furthered in more recent trends of curatorial boundary work with source communities and participatory design practices. The following questions are posed: In which ways are museums reformulating and contributing to contemporary notions of democracy, heritage and participation? When participation shifts from idea or value to actual practice, how does the participation of different publics become a force of transformation in museum practices, values, and modus operandi?

Universitetsavisa / The University Newspaper, 24 February 2020, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2020

The Dragvoll University Campus in Trondheim, Norway, is celebrating its 50th anniversary. On Janu... more The Dragvoll University Campus in Trondheim, Norway, is celebrating its 50th anniversary. On January 29, 1970, the jury for the Nordic architectural competition decided that the architect Henning Larsen’s competition draft of a campus at Dragvoll had won. In this article, I discuss the importance of Dragvoll from historical and aesthetic perspectives. The article introduces the following six themes: ‘A prehistory about city regulation’ deals with the large-scale regulation plans (from 1962 onwards) that integrated the development of the Dragvoll University Campus. ‘Dahlem and Dragvoll’ presents the development of the Free University Berlin at Dahlem, led by the architects Georges Candilis, Alexis Josic, Shadrach Wood and Manfred Schiedhelm (from 1963 onwards), as a major source of inspiration for Henning Larsen when designing the University of Trondheim at Dragvoll. ‘Both big and close’ deals with the planning of Dragvoll (from 1968 onwards) and how the huge building structure was divided into small-scale modules with in-between interior streets and bridges for fast and democratic communication (the late-1960s plan included 700,000 square metres, today the Dragvoll University Centre for the Humanities and Social Sciences has an area of 83,300 square metres). ‘Typologies in the history of universities’ introduces Henning Larsen’s historical-typological periodisation and the architectural historian Claes Caldenby’s building typology, which they used (in the 1970s and the 1990s, respectively) in order to locate university building complexes, like Dragvoll, in the history of universities. ‘Dragvoll’s analog and digital sides’ discusses how Henning Larsen and his project group incorporated both analog and digital solutions in the building structure (from the 1970s onwards) and that the University continuously has upgraded Dragvoll with new information and communication technologies. Finally, ‘Dragvoll during the next 50 years’ introduces some thoughts about how the Dragvoll University Campus may be used in sustainable ways in the coming decades (from the 2020s onwards).

Nordic Museology (pp. 27–44), No 1, 2018

In this study, I investigate the concept of Nordic museology in the early 1990s. The museologist,... more In this study, I investigate the concept of Nordic museology in the early 1990s. The museologist, museum director and editor-in-chief Per-Uno Ågren’s programmatic article about museology and cultural heritage, published in 1993 in the first ever issue of the journal Nordic Museology, is the point of departure for my historiographic investigation. Ågren’s article is firstly contextualized within the international museological discourse of the 1980s and early 1990s, with scholars like Peter van Mensch, Gaynor Kavanagh and Tomislav Šola. Secondly, it is contextualised within a late twentieth-century idea milieu in Umeå where curators and researchers, like Ronny Ambjörnsson and Sverker Sörlin, received, revised, shaped and used a variety of concepts and practices. The key concepts include traditional museology, new museology, museum studies and heritology as well as idea milieu and life milieu, total heritage, environmental heritage, idea heritage, cultural heritage and natural heritage. What were the specifics of Ågren’s concepts of museology and cultural heritage in relation to the adjacent concepts in the international museological discourse and the idea milieu in Umeå? How did Ågren and his colleagues formulate the concept of Nordic museology?

Nordic Museology (pp. 133–141), No 2, 2015

An international and trans-institutional study, the present postdoctoral project analyses the pro... more An international and trans-institutional study, the present postdoctoral project analyses the production of prehistory, art history and cultural history in various museum displays in Berlin, Copenhagen, London and Stockholm, from c.1880 to c.1920. The collection galleries and permanent exhibitions are analysed as interfaces of meaning and materiality, with a focus on the different concepts of knowledge that were brought into play when making history, namely scholarly knowledge, aesthetic experience, didactic learning, technical expertise and notions of how to live well. More specifically, the project combines two theoretical perspectives, the poetics of display and displays as mediations, and analyses how museums made history through more or less locally decided interconnections of moral models, display techniques, historical remains and reproductions, and didactic, epistemological and aesthetic ideas. The three-year project, 2015–2018, is conducted partly in the aforesaid cities, and chiefly at the Centre for Museum Studies, IKOS, University of Oslo.

Kalejdoskop – erfarenheter och utmaningar. Dokumentation från slutkonferens. The County Administrative Boards of Sweden (pp. 4–5), 2012

Central to this study are the uses of heritage and the writing of history. I have structured the ... more Central to this study are the uses of heritage and the writing of history. I have structured the study according to two approaches of analyzing heritage. In the first approach, heritage is highlighted as an historically variable concept that is institutionalised and used. From this point of view, heritage can be investigated by using the method of conceptual history, connected to historical practices. In order to show the rather long history of the Swedish word ‘kulturarv’ (cultural heritage), and its many layers of meaning, I have conducted research at the collection of language samples at the Editorial Office of the Swedish Academy Dictionary in Lund. In the second approach, heritage is highlighted as an institutional practice, which can be investigated from two viewpoints: heritage as an opening to differing views on past times, and heritage as an object with essential and definite meaning. These viewpoints on heritage are incompatible; nonetheless, both are present in Scandinavian heritage politics and heritage practice of today. In this study, I demonstrate the conflicting positions in two recent endeavours: the Swedish research and development project ‘Kalejdoskop – sätt att se på kulturarv’ (Kaleidoscope – ways to look at cultural heritage), which was initiated by officials at the County Administrative Boards of Sweden and carried out in 2010–2012; and ‘Kulturkanonen’ (Denmark’s Cultural Canon), which was initiated by the Danish Culture Minister and implemented in 2005–2006.

National Museums. New Studies from around the World. Simon J. Knell et al. (eds). London and New York: Routledge (pp. 69–87), 2011

A study in the history of ideas and museology of the open-air museum Skansen in Stockholm, Sweden... more A study in the history of ideas and museology of the open-air museum Skansen in Stockholm, Sweden, as an emotional and narrative milieu in the 1890s. In the article, I discuss how the museum founder and director Artur Hazelius used rumbling gunshots, ringing church bells, shadowy forest edges and morally sound women, as well as the Romantic idea of an organic relationship between individuals, institutions, people and country, in order to reach out with his national and museal message and create legitimacy for his museum: The Nordic Museum with its outdoor section Skansen.

Artur Hazelius founded the Scandinavian Ethnographic Collections in Stockholm in 1873. In 1880, he reorganized it into the Nordic Museum, and opened its open-air museum Skansen in 1891. How did Hazelius create legitimacy for his public museum through the Romantic idea of an organic relationship between himself, his museum institution and the Swedish people? How did high-born women from Stockholm’s high society participate in his patriotic endeavour? At 10 o’clock, on the morning of 1 June 1893, five shots were fired from the old guns of the Cantonment of King Karl XII at Skansen, the open-air museum. Newspapers reported the shots rumbling over Stockholm, drawing the attention of its inhabitants to the fact that the first Spring Festival of Skansen was to commence; a festival that invented 6 June as the National Day of Sweden. The cannonade may be described as a vivid and lyrical calling to the people to ‘wake up’ and to direct its steps to Skansen and Hazelius’s patriotic endeavour. This was Hazelius’s cause par excellence. As he had remarked in a letter, just three years before, in 1890, ‘what our nation especially needs is to be roused from its indifference to its native country.’ At the open-air museum, the cantonment did not contain weapons of war and politics, but of love and culture. Hazelius was reactivating, in new ways, the early nineteenth-century Romantic Movement in Scandinavia. What had been formed in the minds of estranged and competitive men was here to be reinvented in the essence of womanhood and the possibilities of creating family-like bonds in society. The cannonade inaugurated a feminine social and emotional space for patriotic love, reverence and sympathy. It was to appeal to people of all classes and find its public home at this open-air museum during the Spring Festivals of the 1890s. Hazelius wrote: ‘At this sanctified area for patriotic memories and feeling, high and low may come together in brotherly unity!’

150 years / Om 150 år. Exhibition texts in the 150th anniversary exhibition for the Museum of Gothenburg, Sweden, 26 November 2011 – 29 January 2013. Produced by the Museum of Gothenburg, 2011

150 years ago, the Museum of Gothenburg in Sweden was opened with pomp and circumstance. When it ... more 150 years ago, the Museum of Gothenburg in Sweden was opened with pomp and circumstance. When it opened in 1861, the museum comprised the natural history collection from Gothenburg’s first museum, together with thirteen other sections: collections of archaeology, ethnography, technology and fine art; schools of applied arts and fine art; exhibitions of the latest teaching aids as well as of products from industry and applied arts; and so forth. The inspiration for this new museum came from, among others, the great world’s fairs held in London and Paris. In the exhibition texts, written in 2011 by Mattias Bäckström (invited guest researcher) and Marie Nyberg (exhibition curator), a brief overview over the history of the Museum of Gothenburg is presented. For 150 years, the museum and its staff have shared in creating international, national and local Gothenburg history. In the three galleries of this exhibition, visitors meet a selection from the museum’s wide ranging areas of interest. Turning points between the different periods can plainly be seen. The role played by the museum in society as well as the demands made on it have shifted over the years and left traces still visible today. The exhibition ‘150 years’ (open between 26 November 2011 and 29 January 2013) is not just a retrospective survey of an exciting history, but also a starting point for the 150 to come. The exhibition’s name leaves it open for the visitor to trace the museum’s development from 1861, but even to wonder how it will be in 150 years’ time. To read more about the historical and present-day practices of the Museum of Gothenburg, please see the 150th anniversary anthology ‘Att fånga det flyktiga. Göteborgs Museum 150 år’ (To catch the volatile. The Museum of Gothenburg 150 years), edited by Mats Sjölin, senior curator, and published by the Carlsson Bokförlag in co-operation with the Museum of Gothenburg (Stockholm and Gothenburg, 2011).

Att fånga det flyktiga. Göteborgs Museum 150 år. Mats Sjölin (ed.). Stockholm and Gothenburg: Carlsson Bokförlag and Museum of Gothenburg (pp. 119–153), 2011

The Museum of Gothenburg in the 1860s was a different kind of institution than the one commonly c... more The Museum of Gothenburg in the 1860s was a different kind of institution than the one commonly called museum today. In Gothenburg, Sweden, a uniquely broad concept of museum was institutionalised. The museum institution included a school of fine art, a school of applied art, a photography studio and a library with a reading room. It also included permanent international and national exhibitions of current educational aids and industrial, agricultural and craft products as well as temporary lottery-exhibitions of contemporary fine art and applied art. Furthermore, it was a universal museum in small scale, with collections of archaeology, applied chemistry, art history, ethnography, natural history, numismatics and technology. This unusual museum is the focal point of my chapter. Firstly, I show how the museum was formed in relation to other contemporary museums in London and Stockholm. Secondly, I discuss the ideas of society and knowledge that were institutionalised in the museum and gave it its central place in mid nineteenth-century societal structure. In the first part of the article, I mark out my research area by establishing the concepts of universal, international and inter-associational. I investigate them in relation to the societal and epistemological viewpoints of the politician and entomologist Olof Immanuel Fåhræus and the politician and newspaper publisher Sven Adolf Hedlund; both decisive in the foundation of the Museum of Gothenburg in 1861. In the second part, I show how the ideals and viewpoints of Fåhræus and Hedlund were employed in the museum practice in Gothenburg. Finally, in the third part, I operationalise the aforesaid, established concepts in my in-depth investigation of the 1860s museum institution in Gothenburg.

Språket i historien, historien i språket. En vänbok till Bo Lindberg. Mats Andrén et al. (eds). Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg, Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion (pp. 43–58), 2011

The article is based on my studies of museums and exhibitions during a scholarship journey to New... more The article is based on my studies of museums and exhibitions during a scholarship journey to New York City and Washington DC in March 2011. Two permanent exhibitions are in focus, both with huge audiences every year: ‘Within These Walls...’ opened in May 2001 at the National Museum of American History in Washington DC; ‘The New York Dutch Room’ opened in May 2009 as a period room in the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I focus on these two permanent exhibitions, firstly because they both address the concepts of home and nation, secondly because they show how different institutional settings and conceptual interpretations influence the narration of the origin and history of the United States. In the article, I discuss the following questions: How did the exhibition groups in the two museums use eighteenth-century wooden beams, from dismantled and moved houses, as building materials in the construction and presentation of a Euro-American origin and in the making and distribution of the current ideal of self-ownership? How did the art museum in New York use the history of style in the American Wing in order to establish an unambiguous connection between European and North American building and interior history? How did the museum of cultural history in Washington DC, in co-operation with the National Association of Realtors, fashion an over-historical image of the family, the home and the residence, which presented the ideal of the single-family home; an ideal that was pursued ad absurdum in the 00’s United States and played a part in the Sub-Prime Crisis? Can the museums use their eighteen-century wooden beams in other legitimate ways to emphasize the multi-faceted history of the United States in their permanent exhibitions?

Regionernas bilder. Estetiska uttryck från och om periferin. Heidi Hansson et al. (eds). Umeå: Umeå University, Department of Language Studies (pp. 74–87), 2010

How did scholars, curators and amateurs create the ‘nomadic Lapp’ as an object of knowledge? Why ... more How did scholars, curators and amateurs create the ‘nomadic Lapp’ as an object of knowledge? Why was this nomad an interesting figure in the late nineteenth-century ethnographic and cultural-historical museums? How did this museal, general and monolithic figure shape a kind of ‘Lapp identity’, which justified investigations, rescue missions and cultural-historical mediations at contemporary museum, university and society institutions? In this anthology chapter, the ‘nomadic Lapp’ is investigated as the object of knowledge of the late nineteenth-century scholars and amateurs in ethnography, as well as of the curators in museums of cultural history. This object of knowledge should certainly not be mixed up with the Sami people living in the northern parts of Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden. In 1891, two expeditions went out to explore and preserve the ‘nomadic Lapp’. The late nineteenth-century museum curators, and their regional representatives, used the Sami people they encountered as objects for an ethnographic and museal knowledge production, but also as reasons for expanding their museum collections. The knowledge production at the ethnographic expeditions was a prerequisite for the formation of the so-called ‘Skansen Lapps’, and their performed nomadic living at the ‘Lapp Camp’ in the Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm during the 1890s. Hugo Samzelius, forester in Luleå in North Sweden, led the first expedition: ‘Arktiska lappetnografiska expeditionen till Sveriges, Norges, Finlands och Rysslands lappmarker’ (The Arctic Lapp-Ethnographic Expedition to the Lappmarks of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia). By order of Artur Hazelius, curator at and founder of the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, he travelled over 2,070 kilometres in 53 days and collected 1,044 numbers during March and April 1891. With Hazelius as editor and media contact, Samzelius published frequent reportages in the Stockholm newspapers about his adventures and findings. The same year, Karl Bernhard Wiklund, a student and scholar in Finno-Ugric languages at Uppsala University in Sweden, carried out the second expedition. Mainly conducting language and cultural studies during his long stays at Sami families in the provinces of Jämtland and Härjedalen in Sweden, Wiklund also collected objects for the Nordic Museum.

Nordic Museology (pp. 7–28), No 1, 2010

‘Know thyself’, this antique aphorism was re-actualised in the late nineteenth century as a credo... more ‘Know thyself’, this antique aphorism was re-actualised in the late nineteenth century as a credo for the museums of cultural history in Scandinavia. In this article, I investigate the aphorism in close relation to the concept of local heritage (hembygd). I argue that the aphorism and the concept were joint together, forming a conceptual foundation for an organic knowledge theory that was used in local-heritage nationalism and in the planning of a national unitary school for all classes in Sweden. In the early twentieth century, the philosopher, museum curator and elementary-school inspector Theodor Hellman formulated his concept of local heritage, which geographically encompassed the whole of North Sweden. Through his contemporary, the philosopher Hans Larsson, the concept of local heritage is presented as an intuitive whole in this article, that is, a higher poetic order of knowledge in which thought intertwines with feeling: local-heritage research (hembygdsforskning) and local-heritage education (hembygdsundervisning). I argue that Hellman in his local heritage reworked Larsson’s idea of intuition into a national essence. The purpose of this local heritage, so it is argued, was to take the people in North Sweden back home to a true sense of reality, to its national roots, and to an organic understanding of its place in history and society. To attain scholarly legitimacy, Hellman blended the concept of local heritage with general aspects of Cultural Darwinism to a cocktail of idealism (national spirit) and scientific naturalism (geography and typology). In this way, the local heritage was fundamental for the heritage institutions at Murberget in Härnösand, for instance the North Sweden Museum of Cultural History, the North Sweden Museum of Natural History, and the Local Heritage Library of North Sweden. Explicitly inspired by the dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian Union, the local-heritage institutions at Murberget were all established after 1905.

UtställningsEstetiskt Forum # 2009. Eva Persson (ed.). Stockholm: The Nobel Museum (pp. 139–145), 2010

The exhibition ‘Alla dessa stolar’ (All these chairs) is about collecting in museums. Analysing t... more The exhibition ‘Alla dessa stolar’ (All these chairs) is about collecting in museums. Analysing the exhibition, I try to understand where significant meanings can be found and developed, and how they can be shaped into an exhibition. What are the theoretical problems of meta-exhibitions, in which a museum analyses itself as a producer of knowledge, power and values? Issues about essentialism and relativism are of upmost importance. In the article, I discuss why an exhibition about the ambiguities and historical changes of museum collecting can only be made when the exhibition producer and the exhibition designer interact with theoretical concepts and the historical soil of the specific museum practice. Based on this discussion, I propose how to make another type of meta-exhibition about museum collecting.

Att bygga innehåll med utställningar. Utställningsproduktion som forskningsprocess. Lund: Nordic Academic Press (299 pages), 2021

Att bygga innehåll med utställningar. Utställningsproduktion som forskningsprocess, Lund: Nordic Academic Press (298 pages), 2016

Hjärtats härdar. Folkliv, folkmuseer och minnesmärken i Skandinavien, 1808–1907 (PhD thesis), Möklinta: Gidlunds förlag (372 pages), 2012

Breaking Boundaries! Museum Education as Research. Line Engen (ed.). Trondheim: Museumsforlaget (pp. 155–161), 2023

Spreng grensene! Når formidling blir forskning. Line Engen (red.). Trondheim: Museumsforlaget (s. 29–40), 2023

Västergötlands fornminnesförenings tidskrift 2021–2022 / The Journal of Västergötland Ancient Monuments Association 2021–2022 (pp. 11–23), 2022

Nordic Museology (pp. 141–147), No 2, 2022

Nordic Museology (pp. 85–91), No 1, 2022

A History of Participation in Museums and Archives Traversing Citizen Science and Citizen Humanities, 2020

Universitetsavisa / The University Newspaper, 24 February 2020, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2020

Nordic Museology (pp. 27–44), No 1, 2018

Nordic Museology (pp. 133–141), No 2, 2015

Kalejdoskop – erfarenheter och utmaningar. Dokumentation från slutkonferens. The County Administrative Boards of Sweden (pp. 4–5), 2012

National Museums. New Studies from around the World. Simon J. Knell et al. (eds). London and New York: Routledge (pp. 69–87), 2011

150 years / Om 150 år. Exhibition texts in the 150th anniversary exhibition for the Museum of Gothenburg, Sweden, 26 November 2011 – 29 January 2013. Produced by the Museum of Gothenburg, 2011

Att fånga det flyktiga. Göteborgs Museum 150 år. Mats Sjölin (ed.). Stockholm and Gothenburg: Carlsson Bokförlag and Museum of Gothenburg (pp. 119–153), 2011

Regionernas bilder. Estetiska uttryck från och om periferin. Heidi Hansson et al. (eds). Umeå: Umeå University, Department of Language Studies (pp. 74–87), 2010

Nordic Museology (pp. 7–28), No 1, 2010

UtställningsEstetiskt Forum # 2009. Eva Persson (ed.). Stockholm: The Nobel Museum (pp. 139–145), 2010

Comparing: National Museums, Territories, Nation-Building and Change. Conference Proceedings, NaMu IV. Peter Aronsson and Andreas Nyblom (eds). Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press (pp. 167–173), 2008

Official documents of the folk museums and open-air museums in Scandinavia demonstrate in many re... more Official documents of the folk museums and open-air museums in Scandinavia demonstrate in many respects a history of similarities between the museums, whereas the unofficial documents contain a history of various local strategies to maintain the joint vision of this type of museum. It is therefore a requisite for museum historians to keep their gaze fixed on the many kinds of texts in and around the museums, and on the differences of the contents. These historians must also be aware of their own bias that may produce imaginary meanings, which in turn threaten the otherness of the documents. Without falling into the trap of positivism, the task of historians, I argue, is to maintain the otherness of the documents, and to dig out their different and – presumed – unessential contents; in the present case to uphold the straggly shape of the concept of ‘folk memory’. In this article, I give some examples of the official and the unofficial sides of ‘folk memory’ in late nineteenth-century Scandinavia, which my broader reading of the historical documents in the folk museums and open-air museums has unveiled. This study of the documents in filing cabinets and cellar vaults of these museums has made it possible for me to describe other similarities and differences than those apparent in a more delimited reading of only published texts. Not until such expanded, historical investigations are conducted, I argue, is it possible to see the cracks in the ‘folk memory’, and its other and more secret boundaries.

UtställningsEstetiskt Forum. Eva Persson (ed.), No 4, July, 2008

What does it mean that an exhibition is strong in form? Is it something else than rich in content... more What does it mean that an exhibition is strong in form? Is it something else than rich in content? Is it possible to make an exhibition that is both strong in form and rich in content? I have been considering these questions since the seminar ‘Att gestalta det samiska’ (To design the Sámi) at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm on November 9, 2007. The reason is that lecturers at the seminar highlighted the design as valuable in the new permanent exhibition ‘Sápmi’ at the Nordic Museum. In this article, I discuss these issues, however not by reproducing the simple polarisation between the concepts of ‘strong in form’ and ‘rich in content’, but by investigating reducing and streamlining ideals when working with form and content.

Brott och trakt. En kriminell resa genom Sverige. Ninni Wahlsten et al. (eds). STF:s årsbok 2007. Stockholm: STF, Swedish Tourist Association (pp. 79–90), 2007

‘Medieval chasse was stolen from the church. The Ullånger parish has been deprived of an invaluab... more ‘Medieval chasse was stolen from the church. The Ullånger parish has been deprived of an invaluable treasure.’ The local press in the province of Ångermanland, North Sweden, was filled with lurid headlines after the burglary in the Ullånger Church on the night of August 10, 1999. It was however neither the first nor the last time the media would report about church thefts in the provinces of Ångermanland, Västerbotten, Medelpad and Hälsingland. The heist from the Ullånger Church was only one of fifty known burglaries in churches and chapels in North Sweden between 1994 and 2005. The present article is based on my extensive inventory and analysis of the church thefts in North Sweden. In the article, I describe the years of thefts when almost 250 church objects were stolen, including medieval wooden sculptures and medieval church silver as well as Baroque brass chandeliers. I also discuss briefly how the stolen church objects in North Sweden became part of the international illicit trade in antiquities. The medieval wooden sculpture of Saint Roch, stolen from the Enånger Old Church in Hälsingland in 1999, is still missing (see photograph in the article).

History of Science and Ideas (PhD thesis), Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg, Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion, 2012. Published by Gidlunds förlag (372 pages), 2012

This PhD thesis (doktorsavhandling) deals with the new view of landscapes, buildings and artefact... more This PhD thesis (doktorsavhandling) deals with the new view of landscapes, buildings and artefacts as significant, memory-bearing structures that emerged in the nineteenth century. It examines the new memory-bearing visibility, i.e. the human-shaped reality as a bearer of memory, and it also analyses the new notion of the people (folk) and its ways of seeing; in other words, a new subject that creates its own history and society. Finally, it examines the synthesis of a new kind of knowledge that became institutionalised in historical and ethnographical museums and subsequently in folk museums. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the historical memorial was a new object that was to be researched and appraised from both an artistic and a scientific perspective. The people in its incarnation of folk life represented, in its turn, a new, higher phase of human development, in terms of a historical-idealistic concept of stages, one that made possible the new vision of the artist as well as of the museum curator and the scientist and their studies of the historical memorial. The folk museum, finally, was one of the new institutions in the second half of the nineteenth century, where the museum curator synthesised his observations and constructed knowledge of the historical memorial, and also employed this knowledge in folk educational, socio-moral museum activities in order to elevate the fragmented population to this new, harmonious and national-individual folk life.

The first comparative study in the history of ideas on the establishment, changes and institutionalisations of ‘conservation value’ in the nineteenth century, more specifically in and by means of prehistoric monuments and folk memories in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the PhD thesis is available in around 50 university libraries and museum libraries in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the UK as well as in California, Massachusetts and Washington DC in the USA. Please, see also under the subheading ‘Monographs’ in the present website, Academia.

History of Science and Ideas (Master’s thesis), Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg, Department of History of Ideas and Theory of Science (86 pages), Autumn Term, 2004

How did early-1900s prison officers and museum curators use, shape and institutionalise ideas of ... more How did early-1900s prison officers and museum curators use, shape and institutionalise ideas of categorisation? A comparative and conceptual-historical study about the history of ideas of categorisation in prisons and museums around 1910, the present Master’s thesis in the History of Science and Ideas (Autumn term of 2004) is neither about an exegetical structure with an exhaustive building plan, nor about a deductive system of building blocks that create flat surfaces. Instead, the thesis deals with the variety of asymmetric relations between statements that only after a closer inspection can be arranged to support points for the construction, which I have termed ‘fostrans paviljong’ (the educational and correctional pavilion). Distinguishing traits of this educational and correctional pavilion are its many cracks and nooks. Firstly, the pavilion as an analytical concept includes Michel Foucault’s discourse-oriented archaeology and his analyses of power in his genealogy. Secondly, the pavilion as an historical concept is studied by using the diachronic method of the conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck, which makes it possible to investigate important concepts, like centralisation and pavilion, behaviour and order. Thirdly, the historical developments of the pavilion system in official institutions, like the Hôpital Lariboisière in Paris and the Sabbatsberg Hospital in Stockholm, is investigated in close relation to the research of the architectural historian Anders Åman. Thanks to these historical cracks and theoretical nooks, I argue, it is possible to give an archaeological-genealogical description of the early twentieth-century discursive and panoptical pavilion, which spanned the lowest and the highest in society, for example the criminal offender and the cultural memory, the prison and the museum.

So, more specifically, how did the early-1900s convict in a prison cell and the early-1900s object in a museum collection relate to each other in significant ways? In order to discuss this question, I have divided the thesis in three main parts. In the first part, ‘Introduction’, I discuss the theoretical and historical sides of the concept of pavilion. The second part, ‘The criminal offender and the cultural memory’, is an historical study, in which the concept of pavilion is applied to the empirical material: first, the documentation about two specific prison convicts (‘No C75’ and ‘No C82’) at the Central Prison in Härnösand; second, the documentation about two specific museum objects (‘M 4302’ and ‘M 6760’) at the North Sweden Museum of Cultural History in Härnösand. The empirical material about the prison consists above all of archival material between 1908 and 1910 from the archive of the ‘Kriminalvårdsanstalten i Härnösand’ (Härnösand Correctional Institution). The empirical material about the museum is limited to the years 1907–1918 and consists above all of archival material from the archive of the ‘Friluftsmuseet och Kulturhistoriska afdelningen vid Föreningen för norrländsk hembygdsforskning’ (The Open-Air Museum and the Department of Cultural History at the Society for North Swedish Local Heritage Research). Finally, the third part of the thesis, ‘Hellmaniana’, stands in contrast to the first and second part, as it is an archival and bibliographical compilation of the philosopher and museum founder and director Theodor Hellman’s published and unpublished texts between 1893 and 1958.

History of Science and Ideas (Bachelor’s thesis); Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg, Department of History of Ideas and Theory of Science (41 pages), Spring Term, 2003

This study in history of science and ideas takes its point of departure in the distinction betwee... more This study in history of science and ideas takes its point of departure in the distinction between legal space and free space made by the social philosopher André Gorz; the former concept defined and upheld by public authorities and legal regulations, the latter upheld by common practice among citizens representing cultural values in the environment that transcend institutionally-applied borders. As regards to the free space, historical and aesthetic values are often important parts of it. Accordingly, authorities and agencies, which are defending cultural values and natural values related to specific sites (even when they are legally founded), often find themselves in conflict with other agencies in charge of the economic development of society. This conflict, which causes dilemmas in political decision making, is demonstrated using two examples – both very important motorway-construction projects, one in the southwest of Sweden (European route E6), the other in the north of the country (European route E4), both touching on areas with great historical significance: Tanum World Heritage, and Kvissle-Nolby-Prästbolet, a site of national interest for the cultural-heritage management.

According to environmental legislation in Sweden, a developer must ask permission to realise its project, and must state the consequences of its land use. When there are conflicting interests in the area, the developer is obliged to present an analysis of the environmental consequences, and suggest how the damage caused in the area may be reduced. This is generally done by presenting alternative locations, in this case for for the motorways. However, even though, in the aforesaid examples, the important road projects touched upon unique cultural-heritage sites, it is shown that the values asserted by cultural-conservation authorities were given a low rating, compared to alternatives representing natural value and economic gains. The article thus shows how, in practice, a value hierarchy is sustained in and by means of the value attribution of the two important sites: at the top is economic value, followed by natural value, and then cultural value. For further information about the bibliography and historical sources, please follow the link to the website of Nordic Museology.

A reworked and shortened version of this Bachelor’s thesis in the History of Science and Ideas was published in the scholarly journal Nordic Museology, No 2, 2003. Please see under the subheading ‘Papers’ in the present website, Academia.

History of Architecture and the Built Environment (Master’s thesis), Department of Art History, Uppsala University (129 pages), Spring Term, 1998

The focus of this study in the history of architecture and the built environment is the Stockholm... more The focus of this study in the history of architecture and the built environment is the Stockholm City Hall and its practical functions and symbolic programme. The study also centres on the City Hall’s inauguration festival on the Midsummer’s Eve in 1923 as a manifestation of the building’s functions and symbols at the intersection of ancient times and current times as well as of the Swedish capital Stockholm and the Kingdom of Sweden. In the City Hall, the practical function of the building coincided with some of the theoretical ideals of society at the turn of the century. In this building, which was erected for the Stockholm City Council as well as for its administration and entertainment, socio-political and socio-aesthetic ideas met. In the creative act of the architect Ragnar Östberg, the consensus politics and the aesthetic milieu taken as a whole became an indivisible unity and a programmatic part. As a result, the Stockholm City Hall was shaped into a symbol of the ancient town and its rulers, but also into a manifestation of contemporary society and its new-born democracy.

These aspects of the building are essential in the present Master’s thesis: ‘Stockholm City Hall. Ancient times and current times’. The main aim is to describe the process before and under the construction and, when completed, to analyse the building in relation to the cultural-historical context in answering such questions as: Why was the Stockholm City Hall built? Why did the Stockholm City Hall get specifically this form? In the chapter ‘Society’, 50 years of committees, political regulations and resolutions are introduced – all in relation to the Stockholm Law Courts and the Stockholm City Hall. In the chapter entitled ‘The architect’, Ragnar Östberg (1866–1945) is introduced. The chapter deals with his progress as a student, with his scholarship travels in Sweden, USA and Europe, and with his period in assisting the architect Isak Gustaf Clason with the designs for the Nordic Museum in Stockholm (opened in 1907). In the chapter ‘The building’, the competition entries for the Stockholm Law Court and, when changing over around 1908, the Stockholm City Hall are presented, as well as the final fabric by Östberg. The ideas in contemporary society and impressions of the architect are discussed as sources of inspiration, which are reflected in the building: the Stockholm City Hall.

During the last years, this Master’s thesis in the History of Architecture and the Built Environment has, for instance, been quoted in an extensive monograph in Art History about the Stockholm City Hall (published in 2011). Most recently, it has been referred to in a PhD thesis in Architecture at the University of Bologna, Italy, about the architect Ragnar Östberg (published in 2015).

History of Architecture and the Built Environment (Bachelor’s thesis), Uppsala: Uppsala University, Department of Art History (90 pages), Autumn Term, 1994

Built in-situ at the Murberget open-air museum in Härnösand between 1925 and 1929, the Murberget ... more Built in-situ at the Murberget open-air museum in Härnösand between 1925 and 1929, the Murberget Church was designed as a ‘Protestant medieval’ church for the North Sweden of the 1930s. Written and presented in the History of Architecture and the Built Environment, the first chapter of the Bachelor’s thesis (Autumn term of 1994) deals with the local museum history in the city of Härnösand from the year 1880 and onwards: ‘The first 50 years. Persons, museum milieus and organisations – a short introduction’. Then, I have divided the thesis into three main chapters. The first chapter, ‘Symbol’, deals with the museum church as a symbol of the museum founder and director Theodor Hellman’s museum idea as well as of the realised central museum for the whole of North Sweden. The second chapter, ‘Church’, deals with the ecclesiastical function and the original and reconstructed medieval and post-Reformation church art and church architecture in the Murberget Church. The third chapter, ‘Museum’, deals with the history of church-art exhibitions in Sweden and museum churches in Scandinavia, but also with the Murberget Church as a pedagogical teaching tool. Finally, the Bachelor’s thesis comprises site-measurement drawings of the Murberget Church, which I carried out in November 1994.

The Murberget Church was erected at the Murberget open-air museum on the initiative of the museum founder and director Theodor Hellman, with blueprints by the architect Erik Högström. Hellman and Högström modelled the museum church on the plan of the Hackås Church in the province of Jämtland, North Sweden, before its reconstruction in 1770. They also incorporated different details and elements from other churches, for example the shape of the saddle-back roof and the gable truss from the Ramsele Old Church in the province of Ångermanland in North Sweden. The plan of the Murberget Church comprises a nave with a narrow sanctuary/choir and an apse, thus originating from Romanesque churches. This type of plan was very seldom used in North Sweden. The Murberget Church has two stories. On the ground floor is the place of worship, as well as of museum pedagogy for the broad audiences, and the wall and ceiling decorations are modelled principally of medieval and post-Reformation images in the churches in Alnö in the province of Medelpad, Hackås in the province of Jämtland, Njutånger in the province of Hälsingland and Ramsele in the province of Ångermanland. The persons, who in 1929 made these al secco paintings, were the well-known artist Gunnar Torhamn and the well-known conservator Oscar Svensson. The church loft has been turned into a museum exhibition, which contained extensive collections of medieval and post-Reformation wood sculptures as well as chasubles from different centuries.

The Bachelor’s thesis has been quoted regularly in scholarly articles, doctoral theses and most recently in 2018 in a scholarly monograph in art history. It has also been used as teaching material for the museum hosts at the Murberget open-air museum in Härnösand, for example in their daily museum-historical presentations during the summer opening periods.

Breaking Boundaries! Museum Education as Research. National seminar on museum education in Oslo, Norway, 25–26 November 2021. Organised by the National Museum and the Education Section of the Association of Norwegian Museums, 2021

In my keynote lecture, I introduce some research results from my monograph ‘To build content with... more In my keynote lecture, I introduce some research results from my monograph ‘To build content with exhibitions. Exhibition production as research process’ (published in Swedish in 2016, second edition in 2021). The theme of the national seminar on museum education in Oslo is how museum practitioners can study and conduct research on their own practice. Addressing this theme, I have divided my lecture into two parts. First, I present the theoretical basis of my book, that is, how I have qualified and legitimised the concepts of exhibition-specific research and exhibition as essay. Then, I discuss an organisational solution, that is, a proposal on how museums and other institutions and constellations may organise exhibition productions as research processes; hence presenting the exhibition as study circle, as well as introducing some important issues about research infrastructure.

For more information, please see the English summary of the book on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/ The introductory chapter (in Swedish) is also accessible on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/48889103/

Critical Heritage and Museum Studies. Opening workshop for researchers, curators and conservators in Sundsvall, Sweden, 14 January 2020. Organised by the Network for Critical Heritage and Museum Studies at the Forum for Gender Studies at the Mid Sweden University, 2020

How have actors discussed theory of science and research activities in museology and heritology a... more How have actors discussed theory of science and research activities in museology and heritology as well as in museum studies and heritage studies from the 1850s to the 2010s? From the viewpoint of this international context, how is it possible to understand and describe Nordic museology and to contextualise the newly launched Network for Critical Heritage and Museum Studies at the Mid Sweden University? Based on these broad questions, I will give an overview of the international scholarly field with its diversity of research activities and many perspectives in the theory of science. The keynote themes are: 1) Conceptual definitions and distinctions from the 1880s to the 2010s; 2) The history of museums and science, i.e. the main historical periods of museums and museology from the 1850s to the 2010s; 3) Traditions in the theory of science of museology and heritology, and of museum studies and heritage studies in an international context.

MIUN Research Exhibition. Opening workshop for librarians, researchers, educational developers and communication officers in Östersund, Sweden, 13 January 2020. Organised by the University Library at the Mid Sweden University, 2020

How can galleries, libraries, archives and museums conduct research with the help of exhibitions?... more How can galleries, libraries, archives and museums conduct research with the help of exhibitions? How can different kinds of knowledge processes be linked together in and by means of these exhibition productions? Based on my scholarly monograph, I will discuss these issues in depth at the opening workshop of the project ‘MIUN Research Exhibition’ at the Mid Sweden University in Östersund. In my monograph, I examine the exhibition as idea and process from historical, theoretical and practical perspectives. I will highlight these perspectives in the workshop by presenting a sketch of a new kind of research activity that takes place in exhibition productions: exhibition-specific research. Hence, I will discuss how knowledge processes may be put into practice in and by means of exhibition productions.

For further information, please see the English summary of my scholarly monograph ‘To build content with exhibitions. Exhibition production as a research process’ (Nordic Academic Press, print book in 2016, e-book in 2017; MTM Swedish Agency for Accessible Media, audio book in 2018) in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/

Exhibiting the Arctic. Interdisciplinary workshop for researchers and curators in Stockholm, Sweden, 5 December 2019. Organised by the Nordic Cross-Arctic Museum Network and the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, 2019

When conducting exhibition-specific research, significant meaning is made by a range of actions: ... more When conducting exhibition-specific research, significant meaning is made by a range of actions: building, discussing, reading, sketching, thinking and writing. In order to fully understand this inter-professional knowledge making, each participant in the exhibition production formulates themselves with the other participants’ professional languages and expressions of skill. Depending on the production, the participants practice the artist’s design, the conservator’s preservation, the designer’s model, the scholar’s research, the stakeholder’s knowing, the technician’s solution, and so forth. They alternate between the role as informed experts, who want to teach skills, expressions and professional languages in their field, and the role as ignorant novices, who want to learn the other participants’ skills, expressions and professional languages. During the production, the participants become educated about the skills and knowledges of the other group members, while at the same time, by working partly independently, partly in group, creating new knowledge in and by means of the exhibition. Research cannot be conducted with unlimited openness. Hence, the exhibition group’s knowledge making is periodically characterised by its more constricted process of dialogic educational work and research work within the group. Periodically, by its more outreaching process of dialogic idea work with the general public, which may give rise to new issues and directions in the production of the step-by-step changing exhibition (cf. the idea of base exhibition, basutställning). This kind of long-term exhibition production thus includes three intertwined processes: the general-learning process of an educational circle (allmänbildning), the critically-examining process of a research project (forskningsresultat) and the impetus-giving process of an inclusive space (idéuppslag).

The keynote will discuss both theoretical and organisational issues regarding this type of exhibition production. It takes its departure in my scholarly monograph ’To Build Content with Exhibitions. Exhibition Production as Research Process’ (in Swedish; print book 2016, e-book 2017, audio book 2018). For further information, please see the English summary of my scholarly monograph in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/

Esille 10. Museo- ja näyttelytutkimuksen forum. The 10th National Forum on Museum and Exhibition Studies in Turku, Finland, 29 November 2018. Organised by Esille, Forum on Museum and Exhibition Studies at the Department of European and World History at the University of Turku, 2018

Based on historical examples, that is, conceptual distinctions, institutional practices and exhib... more Based on historical examples, that is, conceptual distinctions, institutional practices and exhibition techniques, the purpose of my keynote lecture is to present an outline of the history of exhibiting in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Discussing the material and immaterial side of exhibiting, the first part of my presentation will focus on the nineteenth-century distinction between ‘museum’ and ‘exhibition’. In the second part, I aim to discuss the integration and change of these ideas and practices in museum institutions in the decades around the year 1900, as well as the museal development of them until the late twentieth century. What were the characteristics of nineteenth-century exhibition and museum? How was nineteenth-century exhibition practice integrated and developed in the museum practice from the 1880s in the Nordic countries? How was the new practice of museum exhibition discussed and advanced during the twentieth century?

The keynote lecture is based on my scholarly monograph, which was published as print book in 2016, e-book in 2017 and audio book in 2018: ‘Att bygga innehåll med utställningar. Utställningsproduktion som forskningsprocess’ (To build content with exhibitions. Exhibition production as research process). For further information, please see the English summary of my monograph in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/

Nordic Museum Histories. International research conference in Odense, Denmark, 31 January 2018. Organised by the research and development programme Our Museum, the Department for the Study of Culture at the University of Southern Denmark, and the Danish Centre for Museum Research, 2018

Around 1900, curators at museums of cultural history in the Scandinavian countries were truly ded... more Around 1900, curators at museums of cultural history in the Scandinavian countries were truly dedicated in shaping museum activities for the improvement of society. In this presentation, I will discuss how aesthetic, didactic and scholarly ideas were integrated with museum techniques and historical remains and reproductions when shaping these living-museum activities. Starting with a brief outline of the concept of ideal realism, I will focus on how it was brought into play in folk museums and museums of cultural history at the turn of the twentieth century, i.e. in museum cottages and museum stagings, such as national performances and historical re-enactments. Then I will address the following question: In the context of ‘ideal realism’, what were the similarities and differences between the society-oriented practice of the Danish Folk Museum in Copenhagen and the society-oriented practice of the Nordic Museum in Stockholm? My presentation will continue with an outline of ‘animation’ in comparison to ‘ideal realism’, the former a concept which was essential in the socio-cultural outreach activities in the museum and exhibition sectors of the 1970s. These concepts will finally be the point of departure for my closing remarks on the importance of understanding historical museum practices when shaping activities in present-day museums.

The concept of ideal realism is central to my doctoral thesis ‘Hjärtats härdar. Folkliv, folkmuseer och minnesmärken i Skandinavien, 1808–1907’ (Gidlunds förlag, 2012). Please see the English summary of the monograph in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/39627813/ The 1970s concept of animation is important in my scholarly monograph ‘Att bygga innehåll med utställningar. Utställningsproduktion som forskningsprocess’ (Nordic Academic Press, print book in 2016, e-book in 2017, audio book in 2018). For further information, please see the English summary: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/

Udstillingsproduktion som forskningsproces. National seminar with curators and researchers in Aarhus, Denmark, 19 September 2017. Organised by the Centre for Museology and the Research Programme in Museology at the Aarhus University, in co-operation with ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, 2017

Over the past decades, the theme of ‘exhibition as research’ has been studied by researchers in t... more Over the past decades, the theme of ‘exhibition as research’ has been studied by researchers in the humanities and in research through artistic practice. In the same period, between the 1990s and 2010s, the discussions about research and museums in Denmark, Norway and Sweden have articulated various kinds of research concepts, which, to a greater or lesser degree, are in conflict with each other. In order to establish the concept of exhibition-specific research, I investigate these themes, and others, in my latest scholarly monograph (print book in 2016, e-book in 2017, audio book in 2018). These themes are also focal points in my keynote lecture. Discussing how exhibition productions can be research processes, and what type of research that can be conducted in projects like this, I propose a way of conducting research in a participatory way in and by means of exhibition-specific research.

For further information, please see the English summary of my scholarly monograph in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/

LFF sommerseminar. National summer seminar for archivists, curators, librarians and researchers in Gentofte, Denmark, 11 June 2012. Organised by LFF, the National Association for the Preservation of Photography and Film in Denmark, 2012

In order to highlight the media-specificity of the photography, the starting point of my lecture ... more In order to highlight the media-specificity of the photography, the starting point of my lecture is the difference between the cultural-historical photography and the cultural-historical exhibition in Scandinavian folk museums. I continue by giving an outline of the photography as carrier of socio-moral and scholarly ideas, and by discussing the parallels and contrasts in the image-making practices of the museums of cultural history in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The focus is on the museal, ideal-historical images of peasant life: How was peasant life staged and presented in the Danish Folk Museum in Copenhagen, the Norwegian Folk Museum in Christiania (present-day Oslo), and the Nordic Museum in Stockholm at the turn of the twentieth century?

The keynote is based on my doctoral thesis ‘Hjärtats härdar. Folkliv, folkmuseer och minnesmärken i Skandinavien, 1808–1907’ (Gidlunds förlag, 2012). Please see the English summary of the thesis in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/39627813/

Nordiska trähus i Sundsvall. Nordic seminar for architects, designers, researchers, public officials, building constructors and wood manufacturers in Sundsvall, Sweden, 13–14 November 2001. Organised by the County Administrative Board of Västernorrland and the Sundsvall Municipality, 2001

The National Architecture Year 2001 (Arkitekturåret 2001) leaves its mark also at the seminar Nor... more The National Architecture Year 2001 (Arkitekturåret 2001) leaves its mark also at the seminar Nordic Wooden Houses in Sundsvall. The starting point of my keynote is the temporary exhibition ‘Scaffolding’ (Byggnadsställning) at the Västernorrland County Museum, which dealt with architecture and design in the County of Västernorrland between 1947 and 2001. When curating the exhibition this spring (2001), I traveled around the county together with a photographer in order to document built environments in text and image. Based on the approach that quality exists in every age, the photographer and I worked with the ambition to depict and describe buildings and environments from various vantage points. During the seminar days in Sundsvall, a selection of these photos and texts are shown in the exhibition, compiled by me, about the architecture in the county. With regard to my keynote, I present some very interesting buildings and residential areas, built during the era of the People’s Home, which today is an integral part of the built heritage; thus worthy of conservation. These examples of the modern built heritage all relate in significant ways to wood, forests and the forest industry in the region.

Instituttseminar / Department Seminar in Trondheim, Norway, 4 December 2024. Organised by the Department of Historical and Classical Studies in cooperation with the research group Museology and Museum Research at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2024

A cooperation between the Department of Historical and Classical Studies and the research group M... more A cooperation between the Department of Historical and Classical Studies and the research group Museology and Museum Research at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, this research seminar focuses on the new scholarly monograph Det femte Sahlgrenska som medicinskt mediesystem. Mediebruk i den göteborgska sjukhusstadens förvaltande, kliniska och museala verksamheter 1933–1959 (The Fifth Sahlgrenska as a medical media system. Media uses in the clinical, management and museal activities at the hospital site in Gothenburg 1933–1959). The first part of the seminar deals with the cross-sectoral research process led by me as a scholar in museology at NTNU in Trondheim and carried out in the period of 2019–2024 together with the museum educator and museum director at the Medical History Museum in Gothenburg. The second part of the seminar presents some key research findings in the scholarly monograph. Published by Makadam förlag in September 2024, the book presents new knowledge at the intersection of media history, medicine history and museum history.

The 2024 MuSaDel Seminar. National seminar for museum staff and museological researchers and students in Trondheim, Norway, 3–4 October 2024. Organised by the research-and-development project MuSaDel Museum, Society, Participation at NTNU in Trondheim, and Museene Arven, 2024

This presentation at the 2024 MuSaDel Seminar deals with the various meeting places between highe... more This presentation at the 2024 MuSaDel Seminar deals with the various meeting places between higher education and the museum sector, which are established in the Bachelor’s Programme and Master’s Programme in Cultural Heritage Management at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. For more than 20 years, Cultural Heritage Management at NTNU has been giving courses relevant for the museum sector, for example university courses in building conservation, memory studies, museum studies and the uses of history.

The theme of the 2024 MuSaDel Seminar is ‘Increased working life relevance in museum-relevant educations’. This seminar is organised by the research-and-development project ‘MuSaDel. Museum, samfunn, deltakelse – grunnutdanning for noen og etter- og videreutdanning for andre’ (MuSaDel. Museum, Society, Participation – Higher Education for Some, Continuing and Further Education for Others). For more information about the project, for example the project purpose and project management, please visit the homepage: https://www.ntnu.no/ihk/musadel

Lecture at the book release of scholarly monograph in Gothenburg, Sweden, 23 September 2024. Organised by the Medical History Museum in cooperation with Cultural Heritage Management at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and GPS400 at the University of Gothenburg, 2024

Based on the new scholarly monograph, which is released today, this lecture is about the cross-se... more Based on the new scholarly monograph, which is released today, this lecture is about the cross-sectoral research collaboration between professionals in the museum sector and a researcher in the university sector in the period 2019–2024. This lecture also presents some key findings from the research process, which was conducted at the Cultural Heritage Management at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and the Medical History Museum in Gothenburg, in connection with the research project Mediating Medicine at GPS400 Centre of Collaborative Visual Research at the University of Gothenburg.

Published by Makadam förlag, the scholarly monograph presents new knowledge at the intersection of media history, medicine history and museum history.

Mattias Bäckström at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim is the lead author of the scholarly monograph. Robert Wallsson and Lisa Sputnes Mouwitz at the Medical History Museum in Gothenburg are co-authors. In their monograph, they show how the uses of media looked like at the Sahlgrenska Hospital in Gothenburg, including at the surgery clinic and the hospital museum. How did key actors produce and use exhibitions, films, photographs, sciopticon images, wire recordings and x-ray images in their clinical, management and museum activities?

Lecture and comments at screenings of historical films at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, 23 September 2024. Organised by the Medical History Museum in cooperation with Cultural Heritage Management at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, 2024

In these two lectures, I present some key findings from the new scholarly monograph: ‘Det femte S... more In these two lectures, I present some key findings from the new scholarly monograph: ‘Det femte Sahlgrenska som medicinskt mediesystem. Mediebruk i den göteborgska sjukhusstadens förvaltande, kliniska och museala verksamheter 1933–1959’ (The Fifth Sahlgrenska as a medical media system. Media uses in the clinical, management and museal activities at the hospital site in Gothenburg 1933–1959). An important source material for this monograph, historical films from the Sahlgrenska Hospital in Gothenburg in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s are shown and commented at the two film screenings for hospital staff and interested persons at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital.

Published by Makadam förlag (2024), the scholarly monograph presents new knowledge at the intersection of media history, medicine history and museum history. Mattias Bäckström at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim is the lead author of the scholarly monograph. Robert Wallsson and Lisa Sputnes Mouwitz at the Medical History Museum in Gothenburg are co-authors. In their monograph, they show how the uses of media looked like at the Sahlgrenska Hospital, including at the surgery clinic and the hospital museum. How did key actors produce and use exhibitions, films, photographs, sciopticon images, wire recordings and x-ray images in their clinical, management and museum activities?

Architecture and built heritage walk with new bachelor students and their mentors in Trondheim, Norway, 12 August 2024. Organised by Kultura – Study Program Association for Cultural Heritage Management at NTNU in Trondheim, 2024

In this architecture and built heritage walk, I present the architectural, artistic, heritage, hi... more In this architecture and built heritage walk, I present the architectural, artistic, heritage, historical and social values of the Dragvoll University Centre in Trondheim in Norway. The new bachelor students in cultural heritage management and their mentors are introduced to the structuralist campus, designed by Henning Larsen Architects, and its site-specific artworks and academic-social solutions, first and foremost from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Tuition started at the Dragvoll University Campus on 11 September 1978. The Dragvoll University Campus was bestowed the Houen Foundation Award in 1983, that is, the foremost prize in architecture in Norway. Focusing on structuralism, modernism and postmodernism, the architecture and built heritage walk deals with the ideas and practices behind the academic organisation, architectural design, botanical indoor garden and landscape design at Dragvoll.

The Exhibition as Research. Histories, Theories, Methods. International research seminar and PhD course in Oslo, Norway, 13–15 June 2024. Centre of Museum Studies, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo; ROM Oslo; Cultural Heritage Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2024

In my PhD thesis in history of ideas and science, I show that ‘ideal realism’ and ‘naturalism’ we... more In my PhD thesis in history of ideas and science, I show that ‘ideal realism’ and ‘naturalism’ were parallel epistemological currents in the nineteenth-century discussions about how to create knowledge about past times. Furthermore, I show how nineteenth-century museum curators and scholars in archaeology and cultural history fully integrated their research practices with their display and exhibition practices; research practice was in many cases equivalent with exhibition practice. In my talk, I will present how these curators-scholars expressed their epistemological views in and by means of displays and exhibitions as well as texts.

There were two epistemological principles that the curator-scholars adhered to when building cultural-historical interiors and archaeological displays. On the one hand ‘scholarly ideal realism’, whereby curator-scholars believed to be able to unveil truth-in-reality through living images and atmospheric spaces, for example museum interiors of peasant homes at open-air museums. On the other hand ‘scholarly naturalism’, whereby curator-scholars believed to be able to show the evolution-in-reality through systematized objects and typological series, for example museum displays of archaeological objects at prehistorical collections. Hence, I will address the following question in my talk: How did curator-scholars make scholarly knowledge in and by means of display and exhibition spaces, techniques, thinking and things in museums of prehistory and cultural history? How did they work to unveil the truth-in-reality? How did they work to show the evolution-in-reality?

Fulltext of my PhD thesis Hearths of the Heart. Folk Life, Folk Museums and Historical Memorials in Scandinavia, 1808–1907 (written in Swedish with an English summary) is available on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37470689/ See also my scholarly chapter ‘The Exhibition as Essay. Exhibition Production as Research Process’, which is avaliable on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/116266986/

Fremtidens campus / Campus of the Future, a whole-day conference with presentations of research projects and development projects in Trondheim, Norway, 21 November 2023. Organised by the research and development program Campus of the Future at NTNU in Trondheim, 2023

A short presentation of the pilot project ’The academic office as a milieu of ideas and a theatre... more A short presentation of the pilot project ’The academic office as a milieu of ideas and a theatre of memory’ by its project participants at the final conference of the research and development program Campus of the Future. At this conference, the project participants also introduce an exhibition with roll-up displays that present some central findings from the pilot project. The pilot project develops strategies and methods in order to document and study the importance of the academic office for research and teaching. In addition, it is a development project that focuses on the management of the academic heritage of NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

The 2023 MuSaDel Seminar. National seminar for museum curators and directors and museological researchers and students in Trondheim, Norway, 5–6 October 2023. Organised by the research project MuSaDel Museum, Society, Participation at Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Museene Arven, 2023

At the end of the first day of the national seminar, which had the theme ‘continuing and further ... more At the end of the first day of the national seminar, which had the theme ‘continuing and further education for the museum sector’, I was moderator for the plenum discussion with invited museum directors and representatives from the different sections of the Norwegian Museums Association, as well as the seminar audience. The 2023 MuSaDel Seminar was organised by the research project ‘MuSaDel Museum, samfunn, deltakelse – grunnutdanning for noen og etter- og videreutdanning for andre’ (MuSaDel Museum, Society, Participation – Higher Education for Some, Continuing and Further Education for Others). This project is a cooperation between Museene Arven and the Department of Historical and Classical Studies at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In this project, I am a member of the project team.

For more information about the project, for example the project purpose and project management, please visit the homepage: https://www.ntnu.no/ihk/musadel

KULMiST 2023. Tekniske og industrielle kulturminner / KULMiST 2023. Technical and industrial heritage. Whole-day seminar for curators, researchers and students in Trondheim, Norway, 20 September 2023. Organised by Cultural Heritage Management at NTNU and MiST Museums of Southern Trøndelag, 2023

In this public lecture, I present my inventory of all master’s theses in Cultural Heritage Manage... more In this public lecture, I present my inventory of all master’s theses in Cultural Heritage Management between 2008 and 2023, that is, since the start of the Master’s Programme in Cultural Heritage Management at the NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. I also present the PhD theses in Cultural Heritage Management. My focus though is on the master’s theses, as I show that the master’s students during all 16 years have investigated activities and phenomena in both the heritage sector (kulturmiljøsektoren) and the museum sector (museumssektoren) through the lenses of heritage studies, museology and memory studies. Furthermore, I show which general research themes the students have investigated in their master’s theses in the period of 2008–2023. I conclude by presenting a compilation of these general themes in the students’ investigations of the heritage sector and museum sector. My presentation is a part of the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Cultural Heritage Management at the NTNU in Trondheim.

Historical architecture walk and lecture at the Dragvoll University Campus in Trondheim, Norway, 25 May 2023. Organised by the Trøndelag County Branch, Trondheim Local Branch and Trondheim Student Branch of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments, 2023

Henning Larsen Architects won the Nordic architectural competition on the Dragvoll University Cam... more Henning Larsen Architects won the Nordic architectural competition on the Dragvoll University Campus in Trondheim in 1970. The structuralist campus opened eight years later, in 1978. Much talked about in the 1970s and 1980s, the campus won architecture awards, for example the Houen Foundation Award in 1983, the most prestigious award in Norway for architecture. Since then, the university campus has been expanded three times: in 1993, in 2003 and in 2007. Today, the campus has a gross area of circa 83,300 square metres.

On 25 May 2023, art historian Margrethe C. Stang and heritage researcher and historian of ideas Mattias Bäckström will take us on a historical architecture walk at the Dragvoll University Campus. Along the way, they will talk about the architectural and academic ideas and expressions that shape the structuralist building complex. Together with them, we will explore Dragvoll’s many architectural, academic and cultural-historical values and expressions. Before the architecture walk, Mattias will give an introductory lecture: ‘Dragvoll – a masterful work of architecture’. In his lecture, Mattias will locate Dragvoll in the international history of architecture, in particular in the history of university buildings. He will also give a short introduction to structuralist architecture theory as well as some remarks on 1970s academic ideas about campus.

Bryt fasaden / Break the Façade. National discussion seminar with curators and researchers in Stiklestad, Norway, 8 May 2023. Organised by the project Break the Facade within the National Network of Minorities and Cultural Diversity, 2023

The project group Break the Façade (Bryt fasaden) within the National Network of Minorities and C... more The project group Break the Façade (Bryt fasaden) within the National Network of Minorities and Cultural Diversity in Norway (Mangfoldsnettverket, The Diversity Network) is the organiser of a discussion seminar with excursion in Stiklestad on 8 May 2023. The seminar’s theme was ‘experimental exhibition work in collections of buildings at museums of cultural history’. At this seminar, I reflected on which experiences and knowledges from my own scholarly and curatorial work can be relevant when working with museum projects dealing with the theme ‘to break the façade’ and ‘experimental exhibition work in collections of buildings at museums of cultural history’. After an introduction of relevant parts of my research into museum history and exhibition production, and from my curatorial work in museums and with exhibitions, I focused on the distinction between experimental exhibitions and essayistic exhibitions as well as on relevant topics in the history of ideas of the open-air museum.

I have thoroughly investigated the idea of essayistic exhibition and established it as key concept in my scholarly monograph To Build Content with Exhibitions. Exhibition Productions as Research Process (Att bygga innehåll med utställningar. Utställningsproduktion som forskningsprocess, Nordic Academic Press 2016, second edition in 2021). The book’s introductory chapter and table of contents are available on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/48889103/ See also the English summary on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/

The history of ideas of the open-air museum is a central research topic in my PhD thesis Hearths of the heart. Folk Life, Folk Museums and Historical Memorials in Scandinavia, 1808–1907 (Hjärtats härdar. Folkliv, folkmuseer och minnesmärken i Skandinavien, 1808–1907, published by Gidlunds förlag in 2012). The PhD thesis is available in fulltext with an English summary on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37470689/

Nils Månsson Mandelgren och kampen för kulturens framtid. Whole-day research seminar on the social and professional history of conservation and museums in Lund, Sweden, 16 March 2023. Organised by the Folklife Archives and the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences at the Lund University, 2023

Eilert Sundt (1817–1875) was an early pioneer in the fields of cultural history and sociology in ... more Eilert Sundt (1817–1875) was an early pioneer in the fields of cultural history and sociology in Norway. My point of departure in this presentation is some central text passages and pictures in Eilert Sundt’s book ‘Om Bygnings-Skikken paa Landet i Norge’ (1861/1862, On the customs of building in rural Norway) and in his article ‘Nordlandsbaaden’ (1865, The Nordland boat). In my talk, I will discuss the following questions: How did Sundt express his idea on the open-air museum in 1861? How did Sundt produce knowledge by using Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory in the mid-1860s? Which categories and ideas did Sundt use when delimiting and giving content to the concepts of ‘natural history of work’ (arbeidets naturhistorie) and ‘Norwegian work’ (det norske arbeide)? How did Sundt use these concepts when investigating traditional boat constructions and traditional building constructions in rural Norway?

Det digitala museet / The digital museum. National seminar for curators and researchers in Stockholm, Sweden, 7 March 2023. Organised by the National Historical Museums and the University of Gothenburg, 2023

In my brief opening remarks as panelist, I will discuss the following theme: ‘The exhibition as e... more In my brief opening remarks as panelist, I will discuss the following theme: ‘The exhibition as essay – on inter-knowledge research processes at the intersection of art, technology, experience, knowhow and scholarly knowledge’. The exhibition in this case can be analog, digital or analog-digital. There are two main reasons why I have chosen to focus on the relationship between essay and exhibition. Firstly, the essayistic approach of producing and presenting knowledge has long been establish in the humanities, for example in philosophy, history of art, history of literature and history of ideas and science. Secondly, the essay has expanded to a wide variety of media during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, like the blog essay, the photo essay, the radio essay, the video essay and the film essay or essay film – and the exhibition essay. Hence, the exhibition as essay is a form of mediated knowledge production and knowledge presentation.

This presentation is based on my scholarly monograph ‘To build content with exhibitions. Exhibition production as research production’, which was published in Swedish by the Nordic Academic Press in 2016, second edition in 2021. The exhibition as essay is a key concept in this book. For more information about the monograph, please see the English summary on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/ The introductory chapter (in Swedish) is also accessible on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/48889103/

Rock Art Centre, project seminar about mediation activities with invited architect, curators, managers, officials and researchers in Værnes, Norway, 2 February 2023. Organised by the Stjørdal Museum Værnes in the Museene Arven, 2023

How do you reuse museum theories and museum practices of times past in reflective ways? Focusing ... more How do you reuse museum theories and museum practices of times past in reflective ways? Focusing on the museological activities in France, Norway and Sweden in the period 1971–1988, I present some central ideas and practices in and by means of the new museology, the ecomuseum and the basis exhibition, that is, ideas articulated and practices performed by contemporary museologists and museum directors, like Hugues de Varine, René Rivard, Per-Uno Ågren, Marc Maure and John Aage Gjestrum. Another theme in my talk is how to reuse and adapt these theories and practices in reflective ways when thinking about and planning present-day museum activities, for example museum displays and museum education.

The open-air museum as idea and reality – then and now. Centennial celebration seminar with curators, directors and researchers in Skara, Sweden, 18 June 2022. Organised by the Västergötland Museum, 2022

How did museum curators at the turn of the twentieth century join aesthetic ideals, moral standar... more How did museum curators at the turn of the twentieth century join aesthetic ideals, moral standards and scholarly views together with vernacular buildings and furniture when constructing museum cottages at the early open-air museums in Scandinavia? Which aesthetic, moral and scholarly ideas did they use when building these museum cottages, described at that time as ‘living pictures’ (lefvande bilder) of Scandinavian cultural history? The aim of my talk is to give an outline on how museum curators and founders, like Artur Hazelius in Stockholm, Bernhard Olsen in Copenhagen, Hans Aall in Kristiania (present-day Oslo) and Theodor Hellman in Härnösand, used ideas and material objects in their everyday activities to build and maintain the notion of the awakening, edifying and typically correct museum cottages at the open-air museums in Skansen, Lyngby, Bygdøy and Murberget. Giving an historical context to the open-air museum Fornbyn in Skara, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2021, I will talk about the history of ideas of open-air museums in Scandinavia in the period from the 1880s to the 1920s.

This talk is based on my research on the history of ideas of open-air museums, primarily on my doctoral thesis ‘Hearths of the heart. Folk life, folk museums and historical memorials in Scandinavia, 1808–1907’, published by Gidlunds förlag (2012). Please see fulltext of the thesis on Academia (in Swedish with an English summary): https://www.academia.edu/37470689/

Forskande utställning och utställd forskning / Research exhibition and exhibited research. National network meeting for researchers, educators and curators in Linköping, Sweden, 19–20 May 2022. Organised by FOMU Research at Museums and the Östergötland County Museum, 2022

My lecture at the FOMU network meeting consists of an introduction and a main part. As a starting... more My lecture at the FOMU network meeting consists of an introduction and a main part. As a starting point, I will sketch out some characteristics of the essayistic exhibition, the research-based exhibition and the popular-science exhibition. I will then focus on the essayistic exhibition, as the exhibition as essay is a key concept in my scholarly monograph: To build content with exhibitions. Exhibition production as research process (published in 2016, second edition in 2021). In this main part of my lecture, I will firstly present the theoretical construction of the essayistic exhibition: How do I qualify and legitimise the concepts of the exhibition as essay and exhibition-specific research? Secondly, I will present an organisational solution for the essayistic exhibition: How do I mean that museums and other institutions, associations and constellations can organise essayistic knowledge production in and by means of exhibition productions as research processes?

KULMiST 2021. Hybrid seminar with curators, directors, librarians, researchers and students online and onsite in Trondheim, Norway, 14 September 2021. Organised by the Museums of Southern Trøndelag, and the Program for Cultural Heritage Management, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2021

In my lecture in the hybrid seminar KULMiST 2021, I will present some thoughts on essayistic rese... more In my lecture in the hybrid seminar KULMiST 2021, I will present some thoughts on essayistic research in and by means of exhibition productions. My scholarly monograph ‘To build content with exhibitions. Exhibition production as research process’ (new edition in 2021) discusses this type of knowledge production at length. Focusing on the essay as attitude, expression and method, which is localised in exhibitions and expressed through exhibitions, the aim of my talk is to sketch out a new type of research activity that takes place in exhibition productions: ‘exhibition as essay’.

For further information, please see the English summary of my scholarly monograph in the present website, Academia: ‘To build content with exhibitions. Exhibition production as a research process’ (Nordic Academic Press, print book in 2016 and 2021, e-book in 2017; MTM Swedish Agency for Accessible Media, audio book in 2018), https://www.academia.edu/37438405/

Ny formhistoria / A new history of design and craft. Online seminar with curators and researchers for the new permanent display of design and craft, Teams, 16 November 2020. Organised by the Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft in Gothenburg in Sweden, 2020

What pivotal moments in the history of ideas of exhibiting can be distinguished between the 1750s... more What pivotal moments in the history of ideas of exhibiting can be distinguished between the 1750s and 2010s? What significance may these moments have in current exhibition productions? In this presentation, three crucial distinctions are in focus. The first distinction between ‘museum’ and ‘exhibition’ was central to the history of ideas of exhibiting during the second half of the eighteenth century and the entire nineteenth century. The second distinction between ‘permanent exhibition’ and ‘temporary exhibition’ (an intra-museal distinction) was characteristic in the museum sector during most of the twentieth century. Finally, the third distinction between ‘base exhibition’ and ‘temporary exhibition’ (also intra-museal) has been relevant in the museum sector from the 1970s onwards. As I present an outline of the history of ideas of exhibiting, I will also briefly discuss how exhibitions and collection galleries of former times can be used as resources when making the new permanent display at the Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft in Gothenburg in Sweden.

Historical architecture walk at the Dragvoll University Campus in Trondheim, Norway, 11 November 2020. Organised by the Norwegian Historical Association in Trondheim, 2020

In January 2020, it was 50 years since Henning Larsen Architects (Henning Larsens Tegnestue) won ... more In January 2020, it was 50 years since Henning Larsen Architects (Henning Larsens Tegnestue) won the architectural competition for the university campus at Dragvoll in Trondheim in Norway. Today, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology at Dragvoll is located in the building complex. On Wednesday 11 November 2020, the art historian Margrethe C. Stang and the historian of ideas and heritage researcher Mattias Bäckström will take us on a historical architecture walk at the campus. Along the way, they will talk about the aesthetic, technical and social ideas and solutions that shaped the building complex, about the influence the building complex has had on the architecture of more recent days, and about the integrated works of art at the Dragvoll University Campus. The walk will be dialogical. Margrethe and Mattias hope that the participants will contribute with their own experiences as students or teachers at Dragvoll during the decades.

Workshop 2: Policy and knowledge building in collection management. Online workshop with researchers and curators, Zoom, 4 November 2020. Organised by the project Research and Knowledge Building in Collection Management at the Department of Cultural Affairs at the City of Gothenburg, 2020

In this second research-and-development workshop, which focuses on policy and knowledge building ... more In this second research-and-development workshop, which focuses on policy and knowledge building in collection management, the participants address the issue of what a well-functioning policy does. My short presentation deals with the aforesaid issue in and by means of three contexts: topical discussions on museum ethics, an official government report on museums, and the conceptual history of policy. Concluding my presentation with a tentative outline, I emphasize that policy work should consist of documents with negotiated basic principles for museum activities, as well as continuous reflective discussions within the museum where the basic principles and other important issues are problematized and actualized.

The 9th Norwegian Conference on the History of Science. Session 4A. International conference in Trondheim, Norway, 30 November 2023. Organised by the program committee and the local organizing committee, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and University of Oslo, 2023

This paper explores the academic-architectural discussions, the architectural drawings and the te... more This paper explores the academic-architectural discussions, the architectural drawings and the technical solutions when designing and building the structuralist Dragvoll University Campus in Trondheim, which was first inaugurated in 1978 as a kind of university town with indoor streets and bridges (Larsen et al. 1971). The purpose of the paper is to investigate 1970s Dragvoll as a cognitive-material and social-material milieu, where scholars, architects and other key persons received, transformed and produced meaning and knowledge about the university campus and its activities, communications and structures. Discussing the above purpose, I will use and develop the key concept of “milieu of ideas” (Ambjörnsson 1983), as I explore it as an “interface of meaning and materiality” (Gumbrecht 2004). How did scholars, architects and other key persons in 1970s Dragvoll envision and incorporate ideas of academic knowledge production and meaningful relations in research and teaching in and by means of the discussions, the drawings and the building site with its many things? What are these ideas of meaning and knowledge, which they expressed verbally and architecturally? How did they shape 1970s Dragvoll as a milieu of ideas and interface of meaning and materiality? In order to limit the paper, I will identify and investigate some key cases in the discussions, the drawings and the building site at Dragvoll in the 1970s.

ESHS Brussels 2022. 10th Conference of the European Society for the History of Science. International conference in Brussels, Belgium, 7–10 September 2022. Organised by the European Society for the History of Science, and ULB Université libre du Bruxelles, 2022

This paper will outline some research results from the project ‘The academic office as a theatre ... more This paper will outline some research results from the project ‘The academic office as a theatre of memory and a milieu of ideas’. It will consist of three parts: As a starting point, it will reflect on the historical and theoretical dimensions of relevant concepts. By using conceptual history (Koselleck 2002), the paper will present findings about the change of meanings in the term ‘office’ (kontor). The paper will then present the following tripartite conceptual framework: the academic office as a ‘theatre of memory’, inspired by the spatial-material notion and technique of artificial memory from the classical antiquity onwards (Yates 1966); as a ‘milieu of ideas’, i.e. the location in which actors receive, transform, produce and use ideas (Ambjörnsson 1983); and as a ‘general spatial unit within a flexible spatial system’, i.e. a structuralist notion on building socio-material patterns for non-formal situations and relations between teachers and students (Larsen et al. 1971). Using the tripartite conceptual framework, the paper will expand on some research results from the project’s archival and architectural studies of the first construction phase of the Dragvoll University Campus in Trondheim, which was inaugurated in 1978.

From the Scenic Essay to the Essay Exhibition. Expanding the Essay Form in the Arts beyond Literature and Film. International conference in Ghent, Belgium, 27–29 April 2022. Organised by S:PAM Studies in Performing Arts & Media at Ghent University, and KASK & Conservatorium School of Arts Ghent, 2022

From the late twentieth century onwards, critics, curators and scholars have used the terms ‘exhi... more From the late twentieth century onwards, critics, curators and scholars have used the terms ‘exhibition as essay’ and ‘exhibition essay’. I am one of them. The exhibition as essay is a key concept in my scholarly monograph To Build Content with Exhibitions. Exhibition Production as Research Process (published in Swedish in 2016, second edition in 2021). In the book, I show how exhibition-specific research can be established as a critically reflected and sensuously conscious mode of inter-knowledge and inter-experience collaboration. This kind of research collaboration considers its form and content, its participating interpreters, their organisation of the research work, and the specific characteristics of the medium; exhibition production as an essayistic process of knowledge making. The point of departure of the monograph is my experiences as a curator and exhibition producer as well as a scholar and teacher in the humanities. In my paper, I will present an outline of the history of ideas of the exhibition as essay, hence sketching out some historical and theoretical characteristics of the concept. How has the exhibition as essay been described and used as a concept by critics, curators and scholars in an international setting? What are the theoretical characteristics of the exhibition as essay, in relation to concepts like the curatorial and practical knowledge?

For more information about the monograph, please see the English summary on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/ The introductory chapter (in Swedish) is also accessible on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/48889103/

Svenska historikermötet 2019 / The 2019 Meeting of Swedish Historians. Session 4.14: Cultural heritage as arena for identity formation. National research conference for historians in Växjö, Sweden, 8–10 May 2019. Organised by the Swedish Historical Society and the Linnaeus University, 2019

How did museums and other exhibiting institutions work with atmosphere and animation in order to ... more How did museums and other exhibiting institutions work with atmosphere and animation in order to evoke the past, to raise awareness of societal problems and to shape identity around the concepts of people and class? Similarities and differences between the 1890s and 1970s museum and exhibition practices in the Nordic region are discussed in detail in my presentation, at the same time as some international outlooks are given.

Naturens kulturer. National research conference in Oslo, Norway, 31 January – 1 February 2019. Organised by the Norwegian Society of Culture Studies and the University of Oslo, 2019

The Tanum World Heritage is located in the province of Bohuslän in West Sweden. Vitlycke, one of ... more The Tanum World Heritage is located in the province of Bohuslän in West Sweden. Vitlycke, one of the rock-carving sites, comprises three main parts. First, the Vitlycke Panel, consisting of some 500 different rock carvings from 1700 B.C. to 300 B.C., but also with information signposts and a well-managed landscape, as well as the Vitlycke Trail to other rock carvings and burial mounds in the surrounding, reconstructed Bronze-Age forest. Second, the Vitlycke Museum that includes a permanent exhibition, a brand-profiling document and the Rock Art Shop, as well as the Swedish Rock Art Research Archives, administrated by the University of Gothenburg. Third, the Bronze-Age Farm that consists of reconstructed long houses, a workshop and farmland with crops and livestock, and the Nature Trail through another Bronze-Age forest in which various kinds of hunting gears are displayed. In my presentation, I aim to show how actors in heritage conservation, exhibition production and experimental archaeology have participated in constructing the complex Tanum World Heritage. For example, they have used the notions of national interest for communication and heritage management, but also the rock carvings, the long houses and the Bronze-Age forests as well as the permanent exhibition in the museum, the motorway construction through the world-heritage site, and the brand development of the museum and world-heritage site. Discussing how to better understand Tanum World Heritage in its complexity, my points of departures are the concepts of environmental heritage and aesthetic value as well as the museum’s use of popular science and adventure storytelling.

GPS400, Gothenburg Cultures on the Town. The 1st International Conference on Collaborative Research in the Humanities in Gothenburg, Sweden, 8–9 November 2017. Organised by Department of Cultural Sciences, Centre for Digital Humanities, Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, University of Gothenburg, 2017

To produce research and scholarly knowledge in an essayistic way is one central element in exhibi... more To produce research and scholarly knowledge in an essayistic way is one central element in exhibition-specific research, which is the key concept in my latest monograph (print book in 2016, e-book in 2017, audio book in 2018). In this conference presentation, I discuss how an essayistic approach may be brought into a collaborative process of an exhibition-as-research project in a relevant and productive way. Hence, I present briefly an outline of the essayistic aspect of the concept of exhibition-specific research. As the essayistic is in itself a very broad concept, my aim is to clarify how I understand and use it in the exhibition-as-research setting, firstly, by presenting an outline of what the essayistic aspect comprises, and, secondly, by showing what it does not comprise, i.e. when taking place as an aspect of exhibition-specific research. My specific example is the ongoing research-and-exhibition project ‘Gothenburg Film. Moving Images of a City in Transition’, which is led by Film Studies at the Department of Cultural Sciences at the University of Gothenburg. Working as a guest researcher in the intersection of the archive, museum and university sectors, and in close collaboration with archivists, curators and researchers, I try to implement and develop, in a continuously investigating way, the ideas and research results from my scholarly monograph.

To read more about my proposal of collaborative, exhibition-specific research, please see the English summary of the monograph ‘Att bygga innehåll med utställningar. Utställningsproduktion som forskningsprocess’ (To build content with exhibitions. Exhibition production as research process) in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/

BISI III, Buildings in Society International III. International research conference in Stockholm, Sweden, 11–14 May 2017. Organised by the Archaeologists, National History Museums; Dept of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University; Dept of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg, 2017

In 1908, six furnished interiors of vernacular buildings (Stubeneinrichtungen) and ten models of ... more In 1908, six furnished interiors of vernacular buildings (Stubeneinrichtungen) and ten models of farm houses (Bauernhausmodellen) were presented to the Berlin audiences in the new collection galleries of the re-opened Royal Collection of German Folklore (Königliche Sammlung für deutsche Volkskunde). Karl Brunner, museum director 1904–1928, described the purpose of the new installation of the collection galleries, which were arranged chiefly in a geographical series. Firstly, the new installation of 1908 was to present an image of the characteristics in folk costumes, ways of living, household goods, and agricultural implements from various ‘German tribes’ (deutsche Stämme), for example by means of the six reconstructed interiors of vernacular buildings. Secondly, it was to present comparative collections of ceramic objects, house models, and mannequins with folk costumes from all parts of Germany, for example by means of the ten models of farm houses and other vernacular buildings from ‘German regions’ (deutsche Gebiete), which were arranged under three regional types of house. In this conference paper, I will discuss the concepts of ‘image’ and ‘type’ in relation to museum interiors and museum models at the Royal Collection of German Folklore. I will discuss the two concepts and the museum practice in the context of house research and cultural-historical museology in Germany and Scandinavia at the turn of the century, 1900. How did the museum in Berlin build the cultural history of vernacular buildings by using ‘image’ and ‘type’ and joining them with display techniques and historical remains and reconstructions?

Tid for kulturforskning – tid i kulturforskning. National research conference in Bø, Norway, 26–27 January 2017. Organised by the Norwegian Society of Culture Studies and the University of South-Eastern Norway, 2017

Historians of science and ideas often emphasize the system-building character of nineteenth-centu... more Historians of science and ideas often emphasize the system-building character of nineteenth-century philosophers, like Hegel, Comte and Marx, and Atterbom and Boström in Sweden. In my presentation, I want to draw attention to another kind of system builder in the nineteenth century – a museological system builder. Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae, archaeologist and museum curator in Copenhagen between 1847 and 1885, designed a countrywide and coherent system for the conservation sector and museum sector in Denmark. He did so by ascribing state institutions, regional institutions, voluntary associations and even private collectors different epistemological purposes. Distinguishing between art, cultural history and natural history, Worsaae focused on cultural history and used it as a general concept for the many practices about humanity’s past in the Danish conservation- and museum sector. His museological system was based on a pronounced epistemological approach, an approach that was considered to incorporate all aspects of cultural history. Focal points in my presentation are Worsaae’s cultural history with its many aspects. I aim, first, to show how Worsaae designed his museological system, with cultural history as general concept. Second, I aim to contextualise his museological system and general concept of cultural history within the nineteenth-century museal and scientific discussions about time and space.

Curatorial Challenges. International research conference at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 26–27 May 2016. Organised by the Research Network for Studies in the Curatorial at the University of Copenhagen, 2016

This presentation introduces some key findings from the scholarly monograph ‘Att bygga innehåll m... more This presentation introduces some key findings from the scholarly monograph ‘Att bygga innehåll med utställningar. Utställningsproduktion som forskningsprocess’ (To build content with exhibitions. Exhibition production as research process). To read more, please see the English summary of the monograph in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438405/

Investigating essayistic, exhibition-specific research – i.e. the exhibition as essay – from theoretical, historical and practical perspectives, the monograph discusses at length the knowledge production in such processes through nine important aspects. These aspects include ‘research concept’, which is investigated through the distinctions and tensions between different research concepts in museums of today and yesterday. Moreover, the monograph discusses ‘research process’ through texts about the knowing and the ignorant, animation and dialogical work, and group and individual work in self-managed adult education. The book also explores ‘research method’ through discussions about essayistic ways of forming, organizing and presenting knowledge, but also through discussions about art and scholarly knowledge. Finally, among other aspects, the monograph investigates ‘research medium’ through various historical and theoretical notions of exhibition practices in art academies and industrial exhibitions, in addition to art museums and museums of cultural history. Some of the historical, theoretical and practical arguments and concepts have been of value to the monographic study owing to their proximity to the concept of exhibition essay, i.e. exhibition as essay, others due to their distance from the same concept. The presentation at the conference highlights a couple of these aspects, more specifically by discussing the following question: What are the essentials of ‘exhibition essay’, in comparison to neighbouring concepts such as ‘the curatorial’, ‘museum research’, ‘practical knowledge’ and ‘socio-cultural animation and action’?

Interventions. Contemporary artists in cultural history museums – and the museum order in artists’ projects. Research workshop in Oslo, Norway, 18–19 May 2015. Organised by the Research Network for Studies in the Curatorial, University of Copenhagen; Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, 2015

The base exhibition (basisudstillingen, basutställningen) was established by museum curators arou... more The base exhibition (basisudstillingen, basutställningen) was established by museum curators around 1970 as the solution to the perceived problem of the static museum. This new type of exhibition comprised both the temporary character from the temporary exhibitions and the permanence from the permanent exhibitions. Hence, the character of the 1970s base exhibition was permanence in slow change. The base exhibition in museums of cultural history was organised as a three-stage rocket. First, the visitors would be inspired by the atmospheric interiors in the exhibition, for example home interiors designed by an artist or scenographer in collaboration with the museum curator and exhibition designer. Second, once inspired the visitors would be informed by the facts in the exhibition, that is, texts, photos, objects and models that were exhibited on panels and podiums. Third, when inspired and informed the visitors would act in an informed way, more specifically in workshops and role plays in the activity room. Focusing in my presentation on the artistic design, exhibition techniques and outreach methods, I will give some examples of the base exhibition in the 1970s museums of cultural history in Denmark and Sweden.

Exhibition Materialities. International research workshop in Berlin, Germany, 10–11 June 2014. Organised by Exhibition Studies. A Nordic Network, in collaboration with Hermann von Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Techniques, and the Chair for the History of Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2014

In this presentation, which is a work in progress, I will compare two kinds of permanent displays... more In this presentation, which is a work in progress, I will compare two kinds of permanent displays in museums around 1900. More specifically, I will analyse the significance given to ‘atmosphere’ (stämning) and ‘contour’ (kontur) – both terms used by museum curators of the period – and how they were shaped by connecting exhibition techniques with historical remains and reproductions. Through the use of ‘atmosphere’ and ‘contour’, I argue, two dissimilar aesthetic notions of representation were put into practice in these museum displays. On the one hand, exhibitions were designed as idealised illusions of reality, in which the environing atmosphere was used as a vital element that embraced visitors and heightened the truthful and arresting illusion of geographical and historical realities. On the other hand, exhibitions were designed as distinctive exhibitional forms, in which the uninterrupted contours of authentic artefacts on neutral backgrounds were used as basic features that engaged visitors and clarified the systematic and arresting installations of museum objects from specific geographical areas and historical periods. These are some initial findings from my research work on how knowledge about humanity’s past was produced in and by means of permanent displays around 1900.

To read more, please see the scholarly article ‘Making things matter. Meaning and materiality in museum displays’ (2015), which is available at the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37438497/

ACHS 2012 Conference, The Re/theorisation of Heritage Studies. International research conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, 5–8 June 2012. Organised by the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, International Journal of Heritage Studies, and University of Gothenburg, 2012

In this presentation, the Nordic Museum, including its open-air department, Skansen, is discussed... more In this presentation, the Nordic Museum, including its open-air department, Skansen, is discussed as a socially reforming institution. Focus is on the performances of a good society at the Spring Festivals of the 1890s. The contemporary notion of the essence of womanhood was considered to contain all the ingredients of a good community. Through the ‘Women of Spring Festival’, that is dressed-up women from Stockholm’s high society, the idea of femininity as filled with patriotic love and a will to do good deeds for fellow countrymen was put into practice. These women were neither considered as passive objects nor as rational subjects; they were given a position as moral and emotional subjects, who founded their opinions on a feeling of certainty, that is, their love for and conviction of the value of their native country. If their inner feeling was in harmony with their outer experiences, as it was at Skansen, they could say with confidence that it had an important value. By affirming in public this feeling of affinity, they gave legitimacy to Hazelius’s social and educational work of forming and educating the people for the good of Swedish society.

To read more, please see the scholarly article ‘Loading guns with patriotic love. Artur Hazelius’s attempts at Skansen to remake Swedish society’, published by Routledge in 2011, in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37495460/

Svenska historikermötet 2011. Session on Saturday afternoon: Illustration for the sake of the nation – three perspectives. National research conference for historians in Gothenburg, Sweden, 5–7 May 2011. Organised by the Swedish Historical Society and the University of Gothenburg, 2011

Which historical and societal views did Artur Hazelius, museum founder and director, use when sha... more Which historical and societal views did Artur Hazelius, museum founder and director, use when shaping his illustrative museum cottages at the open-air museum Skansen in Stockholm, Sweden, in the 1890s? Which aesthetic and scholarly ideas did he use when creating these illustrative museum cottages, that is, these ‘living pictures’ of the Swedish people’s thoughts and work? How did the idealised farmhouses at the open-air museum Skansen become exemplary models for contemporary society? In this conference presentation, I will give an outline of some central research results from my PhD thesis. I will briefly talk about the ideational and material sides of ‘Kyrkhultsstugan’ (The Kyrkhult Cottage), which was rebuilt at the open-air museum Skansen in 1891 as one of these illustrative and exemplary museum cottages in Scandinavia around the turn of the century. At the open-air museum Skansen, so I argue, the national content was illustrative and exemplary only when the museum cottages were both emotionally gripping and scholarly legitimate, from a late nineteenth-century point of view.

NaMu VI, European National Museums, Globalised Culture. International research conference in Oslo, Norway, 17–19 November 2008. Organised by the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo; Dept of Museum Studies, University of Leicester; Theme Q, Linköping University, 2008

The 1890s Spring Festivals at the open-air museum Skansen in Stockholm, Sweden, were organised as... more The 1890s Spring Festivals at the open-air museum Skansen in Stockholm, Sweden, were organised as socio-emotional spaces, in which women from Stockholm’s high society could act in public for a cause that they considered to be good: the awakening and spread of patriotic love in Swedish society. In my conference presentation, I aim to show how this socio-emotional space was organised and maintained in order to be a morally sound and safe space for the upper-class women. Moreover, I will show how they – the ‘Women of Spring Festival’ (vårfestfruarna) – acted as idealised figures and role models for a motherly society founded on ideas about patriotic love, family-like bonds and morally sound values.

NaMu IV, Comparing National Museums. International research conference in Norrköping, Sweden, 18–20 February 2008. Organised by Theme Q Culture and Society, Linköping University; Dept of Museum Studies, University of Leicester; Dept of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo, 2008

This conference presentation focuses on how and in what ways official and unofficial documents in... more This conference presentation focuses on how and in what ways official and unofficial documents in museum archives complement each other in the research process of an historian of science and ideas. Official documents of the folk museums and open-air museums in Scandinavia demonstrate in many respects a history of similarities between the museums, whereas the unofficial documents contain a history of various local strategies to maintain the joint vision of this type of museum. Hence, when studying the documents in filing cabinets and cellar vaults of these museums, it is possible to describe other similarities and differences than those apparent in a more delimited reading of only published texts.

To read more, please see the full scholarly article ‘Reading the official and the unofficial. On the practice of an historical investigation of “folk memory” in Scandinavian folk museums and open-air museums during the late nineteenth century’, published by Linköping University Electronic Press in 2008, available in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37667874/

NaMu III, National Museums in a Global World. International research conference in Oslo, Norway, 19–21 November 2007. Organised by the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo; Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester; Theme Q, Linköping University, 2007

For several years, I worked as a museum curator at the Västernorrland County Museum in Härnösand,... more For several years, I worked as a museum curator at the Västernorrland County Museum in Härnösand, North Sweden, with its open-air museum Murberget. As time went by, I became more and more curious and surprised about the museum cottages that had been re-erected there in the beginning of the twentieth century. It became obvious to me that the buildings in the so-called ‘Lapp Village’ (with Sámi goahtis and other buildings) and the ‘Village’ (with peasant dwelling houses and other buildings) had been something quite different in the surrounding landscapes before their dismantling and move to the open-air museum. This chasm is the focal point of my research (2007). In this chasm, between the specific historical buildings in the landscapes and the presumed representative ‘Lapp Village’ and ‘Village’ at the open-air museum Murberget, the turn-of-the-century scholarly views become visible, together with art ideals, political views and commercial activities of the same period. It is this chasm that I discuss in the conference presentation. In my presentation, the first historical example is the two ethnographic expeditions, conducted in 1891, to the Sámi people in the northern parts of Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden. The second historical example is the 1890s visions of the museum director Artur Hazelius at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, as well as the practice at its open-air museum Skansen, including its various staff that were employed as nomads, peasants and museum assistants.

To read more, please see my scholarly article ‘Att skapa lappar. Om en debatt och två expeditioner till lappmarkerna’ (To create Lapps. About one debate and two expeditions to the Lappmarks in northern Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden), published by the Umeå University in 2010, in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37628075/

NaMu II, National Museum Narratives. International research conference in Leicester, UK, 18–20 June 2007. Organised by Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester; Theme Q Culture and Society, Linköping University; Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo, 2007

Folk-life artefacts and open-air museums in Scandinavia in the late nineteenth century, this is t... more Folk-life artefacts and open-air museums in Scandinavia in the late nineteenth century, this is the working title (2007) of my PhD thesis project. In my research work, I try to establish how and why people, their houses and everyday household goods were rearranged and redefined into folk-life artefacts worthy of preservation. Focusing on the construction of folk-life artefacts and the practice of open-air museums, I explore the scholarly views, art ideals and political debates of the late nineteenth century. I also inquire into how museum curators used folk-life artefacts as tools for educating the so-called masses in the cities, and as resources for the reformation of society. In 1898, Artur Hazelius, the founder of the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, described one of the main purposes of his museal endeavour: ‘It became evident to me that one had to act promptly if one wanted to make use of the means of research that were still on offer in these old houses, which were torn down, or in these household goods, which were held in low regard, and in these national costumes, which were put away.’ My research extends to three major open-air museums in Scandinavia: the open-air museum of the Norwegian Folk Museum in Christiania, present-day Oslo (opened in 1902), the open-air museum of the Danish Folk Museum in Copenhagen (opened in 1897, relocated and reopened in 1901), and the open-air museum Skansen of the Nordic Museum in Stockholm (opened in 1891).

To read more, please see the English summary of my doctoral dissertation ‘Hjärtats härdar. Folkliv, folkmuseer och minnesmärken i Skandinavien, 1808–1907’ (Hearths of the heart. Folk life, folk museums and historical memorials in Scandinavia, 1808–1907), published by Gidlunds förlag in 2012, which is available in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/39627813/

Kulturhistorisk medieforskning. Mediearkeologi. Session in media archaeology in interdisciplinary research conference in Vadstena, Sweden, 19–21 April 2007. Organised by the Linköping University, the Stockholm University and the Swedish National Archive of Recorded Sound and Moving Images, 2007

In a call issued in 1894, Hans Aall, the founder of the Norwegian Folk Museum in Christiania (pre... more In a call issued in 1894, Hans Aall, the founder of the Norwegian Folk Museum in Christiania (present-day Oslo), spread the purpose of his new institution; a purpose that had been formulated by the folklorist Moltke Moe. The folk-museum collection was to be created to preserve the image of the lives and livelihoods of Norwegians across history. At the open-air museum, the museum curator and amanuenses would gather characteristic old buildings, with vibrant interiors as close to reality as possible, from the many regions of Norway. Already in 1895, the famous Rauland Farmhouse (Raulandsstuen) was acquired in order to be rebuilt at the planned open-air museum. How did it happen, then, that the museum cottage at the Norwegian Folk Museum in Bygdøy got an appearance so unlike the farm house in Rauland in the province of Numedal, when Aall and Moe had stated that it should be as close to reality as possible? Although Aall used a centuries-old house as building material, he transformed it into a cultural-historical building type by using contemporary art ideals and scientific views. In the eyes of the visitors, however, the museum cottage was representative of the peasant culture in a specific region. This latter opinion appears in contemporary descriptions and articles in the daily press, and, in many ways, it was the same image that the Norwegian Folk Museum wanted to convey. In my presentation, I try to locate myself in this gap between the farmhouse in peasant society and the museum cottage at the open-air museum as well as the image of the visitors of the museum cottage. How did this museum object and building appear at the intersection of art, science and audience experience?

Regionernas estetiska uttryck och bilden av regionerna. National research symposium in Umeå, Sweden, 30–31 March 2007. Organised by the Umeå University and the Luleå University of Technology, 2007

In the autumn of 1904, a short notice was published in the Norwegian newspaper ‘Morgenbladet’ in ... more In the autumn of 1904, a short notice was published in the Norwegian newspaper ‘Morgenbladet’ in Christiania (present-day Oslo). Yngvar Nielsen, Professor in Ethnography and Director of the Ethnographic Collections of the University of Christiania, formulated his notice as a call for science. It was high time, he wrote, to send out a Norwegian scientific expedition to tropical countries with the purpose of collecting objects to the geological, botanical, zoological and ethnographic museums. Such an expedition would be beneficial for the country’s scientific collections, but also a method for educating younger researchers. These few lines proved to be very controversial. Already after a few days, the explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen responded with a newspaper article; then followed a month-long debate in the Christiania press. Nansen formulated a general attack against Nielsen’s call for an expedition, but above all against the overarching idea behind collections and museums at all. In his articles, Nansen described a contradiction between research and collecting, between living and sterile; a figure that he transferred to the scientific museums. Nansen’s problem-centred science stood in stark contrast to Nielsen’s comparative inductive method. In the debate in 1904, Nansen stated that the scientist’s living science was fundamentally different in comparison to the museum curator’s sterile collection. I have used these positions as an analytic tool when reading the diaries and newspaper articles from two expeditions to the Lappmarks in 1891. The first expedition, ‘The Arctic Lapp-Ethnographic Expedition to the Lappmarks in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia’, was led by the forester Hugo Samzelius in Luleå in North Sweden. The second expedition was carried out the same year by Karl Bernhard Wiklund, a student and scholar in Finno-Ugric languages at the Uppsala University in Sweden. At the research symposium in Umeå, I discuss the results of my analysis.

To read more, please see the scholarly article ‘Att skapa lappar. Om en debatt och två expeditioner till lappmarkerna’ (To create Lapps. About one debate and two expeditions to the Lappmarks in northern Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden), published by the Umeå University in 2010, in the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/37628075/

Nordisk kongress i idéhistorie. Nordic research conference in history of ideas in Oslo, Norway, 11–13 August 2006. Organised by the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo, 2006

In this conference presentation, I aim to show what the Rauland Farmhouse (Raulandsstuen) at the ... more In this conference presentation, I aim to show what the Rauland Farmhouse (Raulandsstuen) at the Norwegian Folk Museum in Christiania was – and was not – before it became something obvious, before it was set in its role as the undisputed museum object at the museum of cultural history in the capital of Norway. I will do this by going back to its historical beginning and by describing who was involved in the shaping of, firstly, the cultural memory in the place of origin in Rauland in the province of Numedal, and, secondly, the museum object at the open-air museum at Bygdøy in the outskirts of Christiania, present-day Oslo. In his essay ‘Nietzsche, genealogy, history’ (1971), Michel Foucault states that the genealogist are in opposition to the historian that traces lines of development: Where the latter historians attach their confidence to metaphysics and search for the essence and purity of origin, the former genealogists listens to history and looks for the historical beginnings. The three scholars and curators in the Rauland Farmhouse between 1861 and 1906 (the early cultural historian and sociologist Eilert Sundt, the museum founder and director Hans Aall, and the art historian and conservator Harry Fett) belonged to the latter kind of historians, who in their respective research and curatorial work searched for an origin and an opening towards universal house types. One key question in my doctoral-thesis project is the following: In the latter half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, from which scholarly and curatorial viewpoints did the three scholars and curators speak, and how did they delimit the cultural memory towards other objects of knowledge?

P3 Dokumentär, Sveriges Radio P3 / P3 Documentary, Swedish Radio P3, 14 and 17 April, 2022

Broadcasted and podcasted in the series P3 Documentary by the Swedish Radio, the national public ... more Broadcasted and podcasted in the series P3 Documentary by the Swedish Radio, the national public radio company, the interview with me deals with my voluntary work to inventory, analyse and shed light on the many thefts from churches and chapels in North Sweden from the early 1990s onwards. This interview is a part of the P3 Documentary episode The hunt for the church thief (Jakten på kyrkotjuven), which is made by the journalist Teres Hallman.

Following a number of thefts from seventeenth-, eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-century chapels in fishing villages and ironworks in the autumn of 2003, I set out to document, analyse and disseminate the entirety of stolen church treasures in North Sweden over the last decade or so. I did so by making an inventory of various databases and register extracts from media companies and police districts as well as by corresponding with county museums and county administrative boards in the five counties of northern Sweden; my aim was to document and present the many thefts as a problem for national authorities. The results of this first trans-regional inventory and analysis of the thefts from churches and chapels were published in the newspaper Sundsvalls Tidning on the 10 November 2003: more than 225 church artefacts had been looted in the period 1994–2003, for example 20 medieval wooden sculptures, but also medieval church silver, Baroque sculptures, paintings and chandeliers, and Modernist design objects in metal and textile. This published inventory and analysis were a direct cause to the national meeting in Stockholm in 2003 about the thefts from churches in North Sweden, with representatives from the Swedish National Heritage Board, the Swedish Police, the Swedish Customs, the Church of Sweden, the County Administrative Boards of Sweden and the County Museums in Sweden.

To read more, please see the original inventory and analysis, which were documented and written by me and published in the newspaper article in Sundsvalls Tidning (10 November 2003), on Academia, the present website: https://www.academia.edu/37958920/

Breaking Boundaries! Museum Education as Research. Pre-seminar interview by the National Museum in Oslo, Norway, 5 November, 2021

The theme of the 2021 seminar on museum education in Oslo is how museum practitioners can study a... more The theme of the 2021 seminar on museum education in Oslo is how museum practitioners can study and conduct research on their own practice. This pre-seminar interview gathers four lecturers. Addressing the seminar theme by using my scholarly monograph on exhibition production as research process, I share some thoughts on the following questions in the pre-seminar interview: How can museum educators conduct research on their work for the audiences? Why is it important for the museums? What will you talk about at the seminar on museum education?

Breaking Boundaries! Museum Education as Research is a national seminar on museum education in Oslo, Norway, 25–26 November 2021. The seminar is organised by the National Museum and the Education Section of the Association of Norwegian Museums.

Svenska Dagbladet, Kultur / The Swedish Daily Paper, Culture, 14 June, 2020

The interview with me is part of a photo-and-text essay about the Skansen open-air museum in Stoc... more The interview with me is part of a photo-and-text essay about the Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm, Sweden, in the culture section of the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet on 14 June 2020 (pp. 11–15). An essay by Elisabet Andersson (text) and Lisa Arfwidson (photo), it starts with the extensive activities on social media to support the open-air museum in connection with the loss of visits and cancelled events during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the interview, I describe the history of ideas of Skansen, for example its aesthetic, ideological and museological backgrounds, and reflect on some similarities and differences between today’s museum activities and the museum founder Artur Hazelius’s activities in the 1890s. A similarity is that both the 2020s museum activities and the 1890s museum activities were partly financed through crowdsourcing: today by thousands of members in a Facebook group, in the 1890s by a vast network of volunteers in the Nordic countries. A difference is that the open-air museum activities in the 1890s were based on the Romantic concept of people (folk), which today is only interesting in terms of its history of ideas.

Vetenskapsradion Historia, Sveriges Radio P1 / The Science Radio History, Swedish Radio P1, 13 September, 2012

The theme of this episode of the Science Radio History (Vetenskapsradion Historia) on the Swedish... more The theme of this episode of the Science Radio History (Vetenskapsradion Historia) on the Swedish Radio P1 is the history of ideas of the Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm. With original farmhouses and Dalecarlian women in national costumes, one of the main purposes of the open-air museum was to awaken the patriotism of the Swedes. Under the motto ‘Know yourself’, the museum founder Artur Hazelius wanted to combine education and nationalism in his pastoral open-air museum. In this interview, broadcasted by the Swedish Radio P1 on 13 September 2012, I present some important research findings from my PhD thesis about the museology and history of science and ideas of the Nordic Museum with Skansen, its open-air department, and other folk museums in Scandinavia. Tobias Svanelid is editor of the Science Radio History.

To read more, please see the English abstract and summary of the PhD thesis Hearths of the heart. Folk life, folk museums and historical memorials in Scandinavia, 1808–1907 at the present website, Academia: https://www.academia.edu/39627813/

Släktband, Sveriges Radio P1 / Family Ties, Swedish Radio P1, 15 October, 2007

Focusing on how genealogists and personal historians can use museum collection databases in their... more Focusing on how genealogists and personal historians can use museum collection databases in their research, the latter part of this episode of the radio programme Släktband (Family Ties) at the Swedish Radio P1 include an interview with me as historian of ideas and museum researcher. The collections in museums of cultural history in Sweden have commonly been collected and managed in order to give a general picture of life in different areas, both in Sweden and abroad. However, with computer technology it is also possible to use these museum collections for searches about specific locations and historical individuals, for example about things that were close to your own relatives. In the interview, ‘In the hidden corners of the museum’ (I museets dolda vrår), I argue that the digitisation of museum collections has made it possible for genealogists and personal historians to find objects used by their own relatives and/or from the farmsteads, villages and parishes where they lived. In the genealogical and historical studies, these researchers visit primarily archives, but they may consider visiting museums and their digitised collections as a complement. Through studies of museum objects, it is possible to learn a lot about, for example, what traditions existed in different parishes, but also about the societal situation of relatives of bygone times and other inhabitants in the neighbourhood; these issues can be studied in the design of the objects as well as in the notates in the museum catalogues. Elisabeth Renström is journalist and editor of the second part of this episode of the programme at the Swedish Radio P1.

Vetandets värld, Sveriges Radio P1 / The World of Knowledge, Swedish Radio P1, 2 April, 2004

Reliquary from the thirteenth century, religious wooden sculptures from the sixteenth century, pa... more Reliquary from the thirteenth century, religious wooden sculptures from the sixteenth century, parade swords, chandeliers, silver ... The list is long of unique art treasures that have been stolen from churches in North Sweden in recent years (2004). Nearly 250 objects have disappeared. How is it that thieves have been able to ravage to such an extent? What has been lost to research? What is being done now to stop the looting? Are thefts from churches the indirect consequence of an old conflict between the Church of Sweden and the cultural heritage management in Sweden? These are some of the issues that are addressed in this episode of the radio programme Vetandets värld (The World of Knowledge) at the Swedish Radio P1 by, among others, Inger Liliequist, National Antiquarian, and Mattias Bäckström, Curator at the Västernorrland County Museum. Nils Johan Tjärnlund is the editor of this episode of the radio programme.

Dagens Nyheter / The Daily News, 4 November, 2003

In Sweden, there is no national register of thefts from churches, which makes it difficult to fin... more In Sweden, there is no national register of thefts from churches, which makes it difficult to find stolen goods. The artefacts that are brought back come from either remorseful thieves or auctioneers who do not know what they are dealing with. In this interview, published in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter (The Daily News) on 4 November 2003, I give a presentation of my extensive inventory and documentation of the thefts from churches in North Sweden between 1994 and 2003. I also give examples of how stolen church antiques have appeared at reputable auctions houses in Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The conclusion of my inventory is that no authority in Sweden, whether at regional, national or international level, has control over the many thefts from churches in recent years. The interview is made by the journalist Bengt Falkkloo.

2000 idag – millenniet jorden runt / 2000 today – the millennium around the world, Sveriges Television SVT2 / Swedish Public Service Television Company SVT2, 31 December, 1999

In an interview for the TV programme ‘2000 idag – millenniet jorden runt’ (2000 today – the mille... more In an interview for the TV programme ‘2000 idag – millenniet jorden runt’ (2000 today – the millennium around the world), broadcasted on SVT2 on 31 December 1999, I presented the project ‘Vårdkasar i Västernorrland’ (Beacons in the County of Västernorrland). On New Year’s Eve 1999–2000, beacons were lit in around 70 locations in the County of Västernorrland in Sweden. These beacons signalled faith in the future and mobilised an appeal against depopulation and unemployment in the County’s sparsely populated areas. The project was part of the regional millennium project ‘Framtidstro i Västernorrland’ (Faith in the future in the County of Västernorrland), for which I was the project leader, based at the Västernorrland County Museum. Channel SVT2 of the Swedish Public Service Television Company broadcasted live from the burning beacon in Härnösand on New Year’s Eve 1999–2000.

The Programme for Cultural Heritage Management at the Department of Historical and Classical Studies at the NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim (3 pages), 2023

The Programme for Cultural Heritage Management (Program for kulturminneforvaltning, KULMI) at the... more The Programme for Cultural Heritage Management (Program for kulturminneforvaltning, KULMI) at the Department of Historical and Classical Studies at the NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim submits its joint statement of opinion on the consultation draft of the program of action for cultural heritage in the County of Trøndelag 2024–2025. The consultation draft was sent out by the Trøndelag County Authority on the 23 March 2023. In the joint statement of KULMI, the point of departure is the six main themes in the regional plan and program of action for the current period 2022–2023.

The Programme for Cultural Heritage Management at the Department of Historical and Classical Studies at the NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim (ePhorte case number 2020/16248, 9 pages), 2020

The Programme for Cultural Heritage Management (Program for kulturminneforvaltning, KULMI) at the... more The Programme for Cultural Heritage Management (Program for kulturminneforvaltning, KULMI) at the Department of Historical and Classical Studies at the NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim submits its joint statement of opinion on the consultation draft of ethical guidelines for Norwegian museums. The consultation draft was sent out by ICOM Norway and the Norwegian Museums Association on 11 May 2020. As representatives of KULMI, we have read the draft document with great interest. We believe that it is a useful basis for continuing the important work of updating and concretizing the ethical guidelines for Norwegian museums. The KULMI statement of opinion is divided into 1) general comments on the consultation draft as a whole, and 2) specific comments on individual parts of the consultation draft.

Book release of scholarly monograph in Gothenburg, Sweden, 23 September 2024. Organised by the Medical History Museum in cooperation with Cultural Heritage Management at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and GPS400 at the University of Gothenburg, 2024

Welcome to the book release of our scholarly monograph at the Medical History Museum in Gothenbur... more Welcome to the book release of our scholarly monograph at the Medical History Museum in Gothenburg on 23 September 2024. The monograph has the following title: Det femte Sahlgrenska som medicinskt mediesystem. Mediebruk i den göteborgska sjukhusstadens förvaltande, kliniska och museala verksamheter 1933–1959 (The Fifth Sahlgrenska as a medical media system. Media uses in the clinical, management and museal activities at the hospital site in Gothenburg 1933–1959).

Mattias Bäckström at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim is the lead author of the scholarly monograph. Robert Wallsson and Lisa Sputnes Mouwitz at the Medical History Museum in Gothenburg are co-authors. In our monograph, we show how the uses of media looked like at the Sahlgrenska Hospital, including at the surgery clinic and the hospital museum. How did key actors produce and use exhibitions, films, photographs, sciopticon images, wire recordings and x-ray images in their clinical, management and museum activities? Published by Makadam förlag, the book presents new knowledge at the intersection of media history, medicine history and museum history.

Research Visit at the Cultural Heritage Managament, half-day research seminar in Trondheim, Norway, 15 April 2024. Organised by the Department of Historical and Cultural studies at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2024

Presenting their research work in architectural history, museum history, and textile history, as ... more Presenting their research work in architectural history, museum history, and textile history, as part of their three-day research visit at the Cultural Heritage Management in Trondheim, the visiting researchers and teachers Anna Ingemark and Kerstin Lind from the Linköping University in Sweden will each give a lecture at the KULMI seminar on 15 April 2024. In my role as academic host during their research visit in Trondheim, I organise and lead this half-day research seminar located at the Dragvoll University Campus.

The 9th Norwegian Conference on the History of Science. Sessions 3A and 4A. International conference in Trondheim, Norway, 29 November–2 December 2023. Organised by the program committee and the local organizing committee, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and University of Oslo, 2023

In these sessions, we will investigate academic work from an ontological assumption that place an... more In these sessions, we will investigate academic work from an ontological assumption that place and space matter in how knowledge has been produced, adapted, and circulated by scientists, scholars, and students. The contributions zoom our analytical optics in on various scales of workspaces: we investigate the overall design of university buildings and campuses, ideas, and organizational principles that have shaped academic workplaces regarding the production, adaptation, circulation, and dissemination of academic knowledge.

The contributions cover a period from the late 19th century until the present, addressing a range of sites of knowledge production in Europe and India. Understanding the significance of academic workplaces through history complements the existing scholarship on the ‘spatial turn’ in the history of science, and contemporary studies in management and educational studies in informing current campus design.

ESHS 2022 Brussels. 10th Conference of the European Society for the History of Science. Session 12. International conference in Brussels, Belgium, 7–10 September 2022. Organised by European Society for the History of Science, and ULB Université libre du Bruxelles, 2022

While the laboratory as a site of research has been amply studied by historians and sociologists,... more While the laboratory as a site of research has been amply studied by historians and sociologists, less attention has been given to the academic office as a place of production, adaptation and circulation of scientific and academic knowledge. Public discourse on the built environment for academic work is today to a large degree dominated by cost-efficiency thinking, and the idea of so-called open, activity-based office spaces has been met with resistance from academic staff. Temple (2008) asserts that the purpose of teaching and learning spaces, including how the offices are used, has to a large extent been absent from accounts on campus design. And while there is abundant scholarship demonstrating the promises and pitfalls of activity-based open-plan workspaces (Kaufman-Buhler 2020), little is known about the importance, functions, and meaning of individual offices for academic work, and to which extent and how academics use the individual offices as a multipurpose and flexible workplace. Coming from the field of education and management, Ruth (2015) points to the importance of materiality in academic life, including the furnishing of stuff and things in the office, and how that material contexts help shape academics’ identities.

In session 12 of the ESHS 2022 Brussels, we intend to investigate the office and other built environments for academic work as places of scientific knowledge production and circulation through history. We are interested in understanding these places and spaces both from the institutional history point of view, as a part of strategic planning and university policy, and from the point of view of the individual historical actor: Which role did the built environments play in the professor’s professional life, and how did they contribute to shaping scientific and scholarly identities in different historic and geographic contexts? How have academics used the individual office as a multipurpose and flexible workplace?

Seminar on university history and academic heritage with archivists, curators and researchers in Trondheim, Norway, 19–20 October 2021. Organised by NTNU University History Collections, Forum for the History of NTNU, and the research project Academic Office as Milieu of Ideas and Theatre of Memory, 2021

This two-day seminar on university history and academic heritage focuses on the challenges and op... more This two-day seminar on university history and academic heritage focuses on the challenges and opportunities regarding the historical archives and collections of scientific and scholarly objects in universities. The seminar pays attention to how the Museum of University History at the University of Oslo has organised its research, management and mediation of the historical archives and collections. Furthermore, it sheds light on how the NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology works with similar issues about the organisation, research, management and mediation of the historical archives and collections of scientific and scholarly objects. How do these universities preserve, manage, mediate and conduct research on historical archives and collections? What potential does this academic heritage and historical material have?

KULMiST 2021. Hybrid seminar with curators, directors, librarians, researchers and students online and in Trondheim, Norway, 13–14 September 2021. Organised by the Museums of Southern Trøndelag, and the Program for Cultural Heritage Management at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2021

The seminar KULMiST 2021 has the theme ‘knowledge building’ in and by means of 1) dissemination o... more The seminar KULMiST 2021 has the theme ‘knowledge building’ in and by means of 1) dissemination of traditional crafts, 2) critical heritage and museum studies, and 3) exhibition productions. It sheds light on places and processes where actors in the university sector, museum sector and library sector can meet in order to build knowledge. Curators, directors, librarians and researchers from these sectors present, together with Master’s students in cultural heritage management, professional experiences and research results in the seminar’s three themes.

The seminar is held in Norwegian and Swedish. It takes place at the Sverresborg Trøndelag Folk Museum and the Dragvoll University Campus in Trondheim on 13–14 September 2021. A hybrid seminar, it is organised as both an in-situ seminar and a webinar. For details and to register, please see the attached seminar programme.

KULMiST is a research and professional seminar at the intersection of the university sector, museum sector and conservation sector, as well as a teaching seminar for university students in cultural heritage management. Arranged since 2012, the seminar is a well-established collaboration between the Program for Cultural Heritage Management (KULMI) at the Department of Historical and Classical Studies at the NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, and the Museums of Southern Trøndelag (MiST); hence the seminar name KULMiST.

Svenska historikermötet 2019 / The 2019 Meeting of Swedish Historians. Session 4.14: Cultural heritage as an arena for identity formation. National research conference for historians in Växjö, Sweden, 8–10 May 2019. Organised by the Swedish Historical Society and the Linnaeus University, 2019

This conference session focuses on how cultural heritage has been produced and used by specific a... more This conference session focuses on how cultural heritage has been produced and used by specific actors in order to make identities in various historical, museal and memorial discourses. It has been done in and by means of visual practices and rituals, for example in archives, museums and conservation institutions. The selection of what is to be represented in public has always involved both the inclusion and exclusion of groups, individuals and phenomena. Hence, cultural heritage can be regarded as an arena for identity formation. Moreover, the type of values and affinities investigated in the heritage context can be seen as historical-cultural expressions; a viewpoint that has been mirrored in the distinction between ‘heritage’ and ‘history’. Historically deconstructing this arena for identity making is a way to recognise the significance of previously rejected and forgotten aspects of phenomena and places. It opens up for more inclusive and multifaceted productions and uses of cultural heritage. Through this critical perspective on cultural heritage, the session addresses the rights theme of the 2019 Meeting of Swedish Historians in Växjö.

Organisers of the conference session are: Lars Elenius, professor in history at the Luleå University of Technology in Sweden; Carola Nordbäck, associate professor in history at the Mid Sweden University; Mattias Bäckström, associate professor in history of ideas at the University of Oslo in Norway. The Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company, UR, has filmed and released the session at the website and mobile app UR Play.

Eilert Sundt 200 years. Anniversary seminar series for researchers, students, professionals and the general interested public in Oslo and Kongsvinger, Norway, 15 February – 6 December 2017. Organised by the University of Oslo, the Anno Museum, and the Norwegian Ethnological Research, 2017

On 8 August 2017, it is 200 years since Eilert Sundt was born. For academic disciplines focused o... more On 8 August 2017, it is 200 years since Eilert Sundt was born. For academic disciplines focused on cultural history and social sciences, Sundt has been a cornerstone. He put the cultural history and the living condition of common people on the political and academic agendas, contributed in significant ways to method development, and found new approaches to contemporary challenges in society. The anniversary year is a good opportunity to read, discuss, critique and try to understand his thinking and research from the 1850s onwards. The anniversary seminars are located in institutions in Oslo and Kongsvinger, which in various ways are linked to Sundt’s multifaceted research activities. All seminars are led by two scholars from the humanities and/or social sciences, except the final seminar that is led by two scholars and the President of the Storting, i.e. the Parliament of Norway. We hereby invite you to seminars throughout 2017!

The seminar series is organised by the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History and the Department of Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo, the Anno Museums in Hedmark and the Norwegian Ethnological Research, in cooperation with the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, the Norwegian Maritime Museum, the National Library of Norway, the Women’s Museum Norway, and Café Naustet at the Salt Village in Oslo. For more information, please see the program.

Reflections of heritages. National ALM-symposium for researchers, librarians, curators, conservators and archivists in Härnösand, Sweden, 19–20 November 1999. Organised by the Regional State Archives in Härnösand, the Västernorrland County Museum, and the Combined Library in Härnösand, 1999

What do archives, libraries and museums preserve as cultural heritage? How and why do they use cu... more What do archives, libraries and museums preserve as cultural heritage? How and why do they use cultural heritage? During two days, 19–20 November 1999, invited researchers, librarians, curators, conservators and archivists discuss these issues at the national ALM-symposium ‘Reflections of heritages’ in Härnösand in Sweden.

ALM (archives, libraries and museums) collaboration is today (1999) emphasized as one of the most important strategies for reaching out with cultural heritage. Collaboration is established where information technology and accessibility are discussed and professional skills are developed. The development is positive. There is much to gain from getting to know the neighbours with an open mind. The symposium ‘Reflections of heritages’ wants to go even further and ask questions about fundamental differences and opportunities that exist in the views of cultural heritage. Can you talk about one cultural heritage? How do archives, libraries and museums work with the cultural heritages that they manage? What are the purposes and goals when selecting something to preserve? On what basis do ALM-professionals select? How aware of the consequences of the selection are these professionals? The symposium ‘Reflections of heritages’ takes place at the Västernorrland County Museum in Härnösand on 19–20 November 1999. The organising committee have chosen to unite lectures and discussions on a specific theme per day. Thus, the first symposium day is devoted to ‘Background and conservation’ and issues like: What are the carrying ideas and how do the currents in society look like that lead from collection through conservation to heritage making? The second day’s topic is ‘Selection and ethics’ with issues like: Do the selection that ALM-professionals make contain hidden or conscious values and attitudes? Contributions are presented by invited researchers in archaeology, archive and information science, cultural studies, history of ideas, and museology at the Linköping University, the Mid Sweden University College, the Swedish National Heritage Board, and the Umeå University. Presentations are also made by invited archivists, curators, conservators and librarians at the County Administrative Board of Jämtland, the Mid Sweden University College Library, the Museum of Gothenburg, the Swedish National Archives, the Swedish National Heritage Board, the Västernorrland County Library, and the Västernorrland County Museum.

The national symposium ‘Reflections of heritages’ is a part of ‘Symposium millennium’ and organised by the cooperation project ‘Regional state archives and county museums in cooperation for innovation’ (Landsarkiv och länsmuseer i samverkan för förnyelse) at the Regional State Archives in Härnösand and the Västernorrland County Museum, and the millennium project ‘Faith in the future in the County of Västernorrland’ (Framtidstro i Västernorrland) at the Västernorrland County Museum, in collaboration with the Combined Library in Härnösand that houses the Mid Sweden University College Library, the Härnösand Municipality Library and the Västernorrland County Library. For more information, please see the symposium program.

Pilot project on the academic office in university history and as academic heritage and working environment in Trondheim, Norway, 1 March 2021–autumn of 2022. Organised by the Departments of Archaeology and Cultural History, Historical and Classical Studies, and Teacher Education at NTNU, 2021

What is going on in the academic office? A pilot project, the Academic Office as a Milieu of Idea... more What is going on in the academic office? A pilot project, the Academic Office as a Milieu of Ideas and a Theatre of Memory aims at developing research strategies and methods in order to document and analyse the importance of the academic office as a working environment in times past and present at the NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. The project also focuses on expanding new knowledge, methods and strategies in the academic heritage management of NTNU. It sheds light on the academic office as a physical and ideational place – a ‘milieu of ideas’ and a ‘theatre of memory’ – where academic knowledge production has acquired various material, cognitive and social expressions through history. Which place and significance did and does the academic office have in scientific and scholarly work at NTNU? What are the significant interactions between the academic office and its users today, and what were they in times past? How is it possible to document, research and communicate these notions and meanings?

The members of the interdisciplinary project group hold curatorial, scholarly and scientific positions at the Department of Archaeology and Cultural History at the NTNU University Museum, the Department of Historical and Classical Studies at the Faculty of Humanities, and the Department of Teacher Education at the Faculty of Social and Educational Sciences. Funded by the NTNU Campus of the Future, a research and development program that follows NTNU’s work with campus development in Trondheim, the pilot project is also supported by the NTNU University History Collections. The project period extends from March 2021 to the autumn of 2022.

Lyckomat. An artistic research project and museum pedagogical project in Härnösand, Sweden, 5 September 2001–13 January 2002. Organised by Västernorrland County Museum in cooperation with Swedish Radio P4 Västernorrland, Film Västernorrland, Region Västernorrland and several schools and associations, 2001

In the year 2001, I was the project leader of the artistic research project and museum pedagogica... more In the year 2001, I was the project leader of the artistic research project and museum pedagogical project ‘Lyckomat’ (Happy Food/Happymatic) at the Västernorrland County Museum in Härnösand in Sweden. I organised the project work in a working group with seven experts and professionals: two artists, one nutritionist, one politician, one medical doctor, one museum teacher and me as exhibition curator and project leader. The aim of this socio-artistic project was to reflect on and talk with individuals and groups about how they relate to food and happiness, and to do so in and by means of research trough artistic practice, museum pedagogical activities with schools in the region and a series of debates in live radio broadcasts with veterinarians and representatives of fairtrade, animal rights and the farmers’ federation. What food do you like to eat in order to make you feel good in body and soul? What should you eat? Do you have control over what you eat and what you think about food? The theme of food and happiness was highly topical in 2001, considering the problems at the turn of the millennium with BSE mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease, but also considering the great commitment from the fairtrade and animal rights movements.

As overall project leader, I organised the activities in ‘Lyckomat’ in two main parts: 1) artistic research and design in and by means of exhibitions, films, installations and performances; 2) a combination of museum pedagogical activities and museum program activities. The artistic research and design were led and conducted by ‘Risk Exhibitions’, that is, the artists Janne Björkman and Anita Wohlén. The educational activities and program activities were led and conducted by a museum teacher and me at the Västernorrland County Museum. ‘Lyckomat’ included an art exhibition at the Västernorrland County Museum, which was open between 5 September 2001 and 13 January 2002, and then travelled on to the Nordic House of Culinary Art in Grythyttan (‘Måltidens hus’). In addition, in the autumn of 2001, we in the working group arranged five cultural events with artistic, debate and learning activities in Härnösand, Skönsberg, Sollefteå, Stöde and Örnsköldsvik in the County of Västernorrland (please see the program of ‘Lyckomat’).

The idea of ‘Lyckomat’ was developed by Janne Björkman, Anita Wohlén and me. ‘Lyckomat’ as art exhibition at the Västernorrland County Museum was the core of the project. Janne Björkman and Anita Wohlén conducted artistic research with excursions, studies, interviews, installations and film shootings in various parts of the county. ‘Lyckomat’ as five cultural events in the county were satellites in the project. Together with local associations and schools, as well as with the Swedish Radio P4 Västernorrland, our ambition was to talk to people about what makes them happy. Thus, we in the working group, together with our regional and local cooperation partners, organised artistic performances, debate forums, film screenings, radio broadcasts, school activities, concerts with local bands and favorite dishes at local and museum restaurants. While the form and time of the cultural events depended on the preparatory work in the various locations, they all had in common that they were based on meeting individuals and groups in their local communities.

Faith in the Future in the County of Västernorrland. Regional millennium project in the County of Västernorrland, Sweden, 12 August 1999–30 April 2000. Organised by the Västernorrland County Museum in co-operation with and supported by 273 associations, companies, institutions and organisations, 1999

During the autumn of 1999, the county museums in Sweden and the Nordic Museum in Stockholm have p... more During the autumn of 1999, the county museums in Sweden and the Nordic Museum in Stockholm have produced temporary exhibitions on the theme of Faith in the Future (Framtidstro). The temporary exhibition at the Västernorrland County Museum in Härnösand functions as a kind of headline to inspire and inform people. The other key part of the project in the County of Västernorrland aims to capture and develop ideas that people have, that is, to be a catalyst for the good ideas and to create debate, collaboration and networks in the local community. Based on the sentence ‘Everyone can be involved – together we can’, formulated by me as curator and project leader, the regional millennium project Faith in the Future in the County of Västernorrland 1999–2000 (Framtidstro i Västernorrland 1999–2000), located at the Västernorrland County Museum, works to highlight the mutual power and knowledge in the multifaceted society in order to create a positive spirit among people before and after the turn of the millennium. However, the project cannot close its eyes to the reality of the northern parts of Sweden but must also address difficult issues in present-day society, hence the name of the temporary exhibition: Faith or Mistrust in the Future of the County of Västernorrland. The Västernorrland County Museum believes that the regional millennium project may be such a network where the County Museum, together with persons, organisations, institutions and companies from all around society, can clarify problems and opportunities, and where we jointly can find ways to a better future in the County of Västernorrland. The participatory activities include co-operative work on issues about the future in North Sweden in and by means of art installations, heritage festivals, ecological discussions, documentary film, manifestation against racism, and critical reflections on the museum’s activities, to mention but a few; these are formulated and carried out by actors both outside and inside of the museum.

Faith in the Future in the County of Västernorrland, when this regional millennium project was completed in the spring of 2000, a total of 273 associations, companies, institutions and organisations in 81 cities and towns in the County of Västernorrland and other counties in Sweden had been involved. For more information, please read the exhibition and project catalogue Faith in the Future (Preface and Projects) at the present website Academia: https://www.academia.edu/39799515/

One-month festival with first performance concert, art performance, temporary exhibition, concerts and workshops in Härnösand, Sweden, 26 February–26 March 1998. Organised by Västernorrland County Museum together with Music in Västernorrland, Society for New Music, Härnösands Folkhögskola, et al., 1998

The one-month festival Gränsland (Borderland) was held at the Västernorrland County Museum and th... more The one-month festival Gränsland (Borderland) was held at the Västernorrland County Museum and the Härnösand Folkhögskola, Sweden, in February–March 1998. As curator and project leader, I organised the festival as a borderland in time and between fields for artists, artisans and musicians to create and perform new works and new interpretations of historical works. Hence, the participating artists, artisans and musicians produced new works during the festival period, for example a first performance concert and a temporary exhibition as well as an installation, a performance and a workshop. Many of the works were made and performed in response to other works in the festival as well as in relation to museum activities such as museum education and exhibition production. The festival also included an open workshop to discuss and reflect on Gränsland and the city of Härnösand as sites for artistic expressions; the workshop was led by an artist and me as curator, together with the museum director of the Uppsala Art Museum and an art historian and art critic at the Uppsala University. As curator, one of my ambitions with the festival Gränsland was to organise the Västernorrland County Museum as a borderland and meeting place for artisans, artists, curators and musicians, but also between them and the many participants and audiences. The festival Gränsland was partly financed by the Swedish Arts Council.