About the project
"Collecting Norden" was an transdisciplinary research, pedagogical and outreach project. Researchers and museum professionals from the humanities and natural sciences at UiO (University of Oslo) and partner institutions in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark participated in the project.
The project focused on collections of cultural and natural objects and investigated the knowledge about the Nordic region that these objects could provide us with.
Objectives
The project examined objects that were gathered during tourist trips and scientific expeditions in the northern parts of the Nordic region in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The objects could be natural, human-made, physical, and sensory. Many of these objects made their way into museum collections and shaped the political and cultural knowledge about the Nordic countries up until today, while others never found their way there.
The goal of the project was to uncover the lost narratives of the Nordic region and to examine existing narratives. In this way, the project offered critical and alternative interpretations and explanations of our contemporary ideas about the Nordic region.
"Collecting Norden" focused on the Nordic North, defined as both a geopolitical entity and a cultural concept. Since the 19th century, the Nordic North has had significant influence on the ideas and concepts of the Nordic countries and in extension, the so-called Nordic Model.
Virtual exhibition
What can objects collected in the Nordic countries tell us about the North?
Visit the exhibition "Collecting Norden"
Duration
01.01.2021–30.11.2023
Cooperation
- Oslo Natural History Museum (UiO)
- Faculty of Humanities (UiO)
- Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (UiO)
- HEI: Heritage Experience Initiative
- University of Copenhagen
- The Polar Museum, UiT The Arctic University of Norway
- Nord-Troms Museum
- Museum Nordiska museet, Stockholm (associated)
Financing
Collecting Norden was financed by UiO:Nordic, University of Oslo.
Conference: Collecting the North
Welcome to "Collecting the North", a hybrid conference hosted by the UiO:Nordic research group Collecting Norden. The conference will take place 19-20 October 2022 at the University of Oslo (Blindern) and on Zoom.
Exploring the North through objects
What can objects – artefacts, things, souvenirs, specimens, texts, etc. – tell us about the North? This conference will explore objects, collections and collection practices and investigate their relevance to the narratives, imaginings and interpretations of the North in the past, present and future. "North" refers here to the North of Europe, that is, the Nordic countries and the (European) Arctic.
This conference will investigate a wide variety of objects – natural, human-made, physical and/or sensory ones –, collections and collection practices. Some objects were collected during touristic tours and scientific expeditions in the North, others as part of industrial activities such as whale hunting or by individual travellers or residents. Some have entered museums, archives, libraries and private collections, others have been lost or can today only be found in secondary sources, for example in literature and art. In order to understand different ideas of the North, we need to analyse the objects as well as the many different collection practices, interpretations and scientific uses of these objects.
Program
Wednesday, 19 October
Paper session A1: Book collections
- Giuliano D’Amico (University of Oslo): “’Les aldri bøker!’ Reflections on literary history and Norwegian contemporary book collections”
- Kamilla Aslaksen (INN University): “Hamsun’s Book Collection at Nørholm: A material approach to bibliography”
- Christian Drury (Durham University): “Collecting the North at the National Library of Scotland”
- Chair: Janicke S. Kaasa
Paper session B1: Architecture
- Linn Willetts Borgen (The National Trust of Norway): “Collecting the Stave Churches – 19th century emblematization of medieval heritage and its long-term influences”
- Sine Bjordal (University of Oslo): “Stave Churches on the Move – collecting and connecting architecture in 19th century Norway”
- Kristján Mímisson (National Museum of Iceland): “Shedding Light on Illumination: Luminous bodies, light conditions and architecture in the North”
- Chair: Alexandre Simon-Ekeland
Paper session A2: Archives and manuscript culture
- Davíð Ólafsson (University of Iceland): “Textual matters: Manuscripts as material culture”
- Elettra Carbone (UCL University College London): “Nordic Fragments: Representations of the Nordic region in UCL’s collections” [digital]
- Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon (University of Iceland): “Textual Embodiment: Popular art on a page”
- Chair: Johannes Mattes
Paper session B2: Museums and material culture
- Michael Fuhr (Museumsberg in Flensburg): “Museumsberg Flensburg – Collecting the North for 150 years“
- Anna Lísa Rúnarsdóttir (University of Iceland): “Material Culture and Narratives of the North: Museum collection in Iceland”
- Anna Heiða Baldursdóttir (University of Iceland): “Everyday Objects in two Archives: Probate inventories and museum collection”
- Chair: Stefanie Steinbeck
Paper session A3: Natural (polar) history
- Marianne Klemun (University of Vienna): “’Nordic Minerals’ and European Mineralogists as Go-betweens: Discourses, knowledge and practices” [digital]
- Ivana Dizdar (University of Toronto / Princeton University): “Between a Rock and a Landscape: François-Auguste Biard and the visual culture of Arctic mineralogy” [digital]
- Lene Liebe Delsett (University of Oslo) & Alexandre Simon-Ekeland (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences): “Collecting Whales. Whale collections in the Bergen and Paris natural history museums in the end of the 19th century”
- Chair: Anka Ryall
Roundtable 1: Cultural heritage and community
- Komafest: “New Chapter: Ural truck for inclusion” [digital]
- Crina Leon (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi): “A decade of Norwegian studies through a collection of Norwegian events in Iaşi” [digital]
- Stefanie Steinbeck (Copenhagen Business School): “’Is this real?’ - Constructed objects at the Danish Workers Museum”
- Chair: Marit Hauan
BYOO / Research Helpdesk I
- Discussion of research problems with fellow researchers
Thursday, 20 October
Roundtable 2: Collecting arctic representations
- John Bodinger de Uriarte (Susquehanna University): “Northern Vernaculars: National and Sundry objects” [digital]
- Janicke S. Kaasa (Oslo Metropolitan University): “Literary Representation and Collecting”
- Heidi Hansson (Umeå University): “Illustration as Collection”
- Marit Sjelmo (The Norwegian University of Science and Technology): “Corpora and collections – Books on northern travel in the Norwegian National Library”
- Chair: Ulrike Spring
Paper session C1: Polar history
- Ryan Nutting (University of Derby): “’The Corner Case Contains an Arctic Scene’: The changing interpretations of a polar bear and the Arctic at the Horniman Museum in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries”
- Johannes Mattes (Austrian Academy of Sciences/University of Oslo) & Sandra Klos (Austrian Academy of Sciences): “Sensing, Observing, Measuring: The Jan Mayen Expedition of 1882/83, Habsburg (popular) science, and the field diary of József Pálffy"
- Ryan Weber (Misericordia University): “Collecting Songs, Sharing Suffering: Diachronic and synchronic perspectives of pain in Nordic folksongs and folklore”
- Marit Hauan (The Arctic University Museum of Norway): “A Fur Anorak”
- Chair: Christian Drury
Paper session D1: The North, indigeneity and art
- JoAnn Conrad (Diablo Valley College): “Reflections/Refractions of Lapland – the photographs and art of John Bauer and Emilie Demant Hatt”
- Erika De Vivo (University of Torino): “Collecting Sápmi: On the construction of the ultimate ‘other’ in fin-de-siècle Italy”
- Hendrik Heft (Museumsberg in Flensburg): “The Artist Colony of Ekensund – landscape painting in northern Germany and contemporary marketing strategies”
- Jennifer Britt Lundberg Hansen (The Arctic University of Tromsø): “The Case of the Netsilik Girls”
- Chair: Heidi Hansson
BYOO / Research Helpdesk II
- Discussion of research ‘problems’ with fellow researchers
Roundtable 3: Collecting and nationbuilding
- Ulrike Spring (University of Oslo): “Making Souvenirs Nordic: border-crossing between the North and Central Europe, the 1880s– 1890s”
- Anka Ryall (The Arctic University of Tromsø): “Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen’s Collection of Polar Plants and the Politics of Norwegianization after 1905”
- Simen Hustoft (University of Oslo): “’For particulars, see below’: Occupation signs as a physical act of strengthening or disputing Norwegianization of Spitsbergen”
- Chair: Janicke S. Kaasa
Coffee & concluding remarks
Friday, 21 October
Guided visit to the Natural History Museum with Hans Arne Nakrem (For speakers only). Meeting point: Outside the main museum entrance, inside the Botanical Gardens.