Sigrid Lien

Professor, History of art/ history and theory of photography/ visual culture

Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies

E-mailSigrid.Lien@uib.no
Phone+47 55 58 32 01+47 994 85 385
Visitor Address
Sydnesplassen 7

HF-bygget

5007 Bergen
Postal Address
Postboks 7805

5020 Bergen

Sigrid Lien is a professor of art history at the University of Bergen, where she has had a permanent position since 2002. Lien researches modern art and contemporary art, and also has expertise in the field of museology. However, her primary specialty is the history and theory of photography.

Lien's work has for years been centered on visual culture, and photography in particular. In the beginning of her academic career, she was the first to offer history and theory of photography as a university course in Norway. She initiated the first cross-disciplinary, nationally funded research project on photography, she wrote the first volume on Norwegian history of photography, and a pioneering study of the role of photography in the Norwegian history of migration. Photography has also, over the years, led her into the internationally expanding fields of museology, and post-and decolonial studies.

In Liens recent project Negotiating History: Photography in Sámi Culture, she have fronted a novel understanding of the Arctic as an inhabited space, collaborating extensively with the major international scholars in this field. Importantly, this research has also led her to explore how photography as visual culture is embedded in a wider context – a cluster of paradoxes and conflict lines that cuts through the Arctic. Furthermore, it has made her aware of the necessity to transcend specific scientific disciplinary borders and national boundaries – and thus to initiate a SFF-initiative as a first major humanities-driven attempt of understanding why and how the Arctic has become such a potent a site of concurrent visions of the past, future and present: Visions of the Arctic.

Lien teaches modern art and contemporary art. Her primary specialty is the history and theory of photography.

Supervision of PhD-students:

2014–2017
Supervisor for Kjellaug Isaksen, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway

2013–2015
Supervisor for Pauline Hoath, Department for Information and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Norway

2010–2015
Supervisor for Tove Haugsbø, Phd student, Art history, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway

2010–2014
Supervisor for Anne Hege Simonsen, Phd student, Art history, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway

2007–2011
Supervisor Christine Hansen, Phd student Art history, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway

2008–2012
Supervisor for Mathias Danbolt, Phd student, Art history, Department ofLinguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway

Academic article

Show author(s) (2022). Knowing and Not Knowing: Addressing Chinese Objects in the Art Museum. Oxford Art Journal. 63-82.

Show author(s) (2021). «Undertrykkelsen har vært motbydelig for meg» Familiefotografi, fornorskning og aktivisme. Kunst og kultur. 41-56.
Show author(s) (2021). Familiealbumet og de vanskelige fortellingene. Introduksjon til temanummer. Kunst og kultur. 4-7.

Show author(s) (2020). Ragnhild’s Images: Migration, Settler Colonialism and Photography. International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity. 1-22.

Show author(s) (2019). ‘Permanent Displays’ as Unsettling Layers of Epistemologies, Politics and Aesthetics. Museum and Society (M&S). 439-457.

Show author(s) (2018). Performing academic Masculinity in the Arctic: Sophus Tromholt and Roland Bonaparte’s photographic accounts of Sámi peoples and Northern landscapes. Journal of Aesthetics and Culture.

Show author(s) (2017). Just Loafing Around: Peter Rosendahls Photographs from Spring Grove. Vesterheim Magazine. 13-18.

Show author(s) (2015). Wandering in the world with a camera: The photographic art of Tom Sandberg. Objektiv. Tidskrift for kamerabasert kunst. 55-57.

Show author(s) (2014). Not "just a boring tree": The landscape as a marker of identity in Norwegian and Sámi photography. Kunst og kultur. 148-159.
Show author(s) (2014). Norway: Photography. Oxford Art Online.
Show author(s) (2014). "What's the meaning of it all:" Poetry and Politics in Peter Rosendahl's Photographs from Spring Grove, Minnesota. Norwegian-American Essays. 247-272.

Show author(s) (2012). Conventional Ethnographic Display or Subversive Aesthetics? Historical Narratives of the Sami Museum, RiddoDuottarMuseat-Sámiid Vuorká-Dávvirat (RDM-SVD) in Karasjok, Norway. Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings. 599-616.
Show author(s) (2012). Absence and Presence: The Works of Photographs in the Sami Museum, RiddoDuottarMuseat-Sámiid Vuorká-Dávvirat (RDM-SVD) in Karasjok, Norway. Photography and Culture. 295-310.

Show author(s) (2011). Kolonial skam og borgerlig stolthet : historien om et ukjent maleri. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. 96-108.

Show author(s) (2010). Tiden,stedet og historien - Oddleiv Apneseths fotografiske dagbok. Kunst og kultur. 204-213.
Show author(s) (2010). Tiden, stedet og historien : Oddleiv Apneseths fotografiske dagbok. Kunst og kultur. 204-213.

Show author(s) (2005). «The Wild Duck and other stories. The Discourse of Photography in Nineteenth Century Norway». Konsthistorisk tidskrift. 82-94.

Show author(s) (2003). Sportsfotografiets estetikk. Nordicom Information. 67-82.

Show author(s) (2002). “The Aesthetics of Sports Photography”. Nordicom Review. 215-235.

Show author(s) (2001). "Not the proper way, but many proper ways to think about pictures". Intensjonalitet og historisk rekonstruksjon i Michael Baxandalls Patterns of Intention. Kunst og kultur. 104-119.

Show author(s) (2000). Stedet som arena for kunstnerisk aktivitet. Kunst og kultur. 238-244.
Show author(s) (2000). Stedet som arena for kunstnerisk aktivitet. Kunst og kultur. 238-244.
Show author(s) (2000). "Slap-dash" og sterke bilder: Rock- og popkulturens fotografiske portretter. Svarthvitt. Kulturhistorisk fotografi. 17-21.

Lecture

Show author(s) (2023). Adjusting the Lens. Indigenous Activism, Colonial Legacies and Photographic Heritage.

Show author(s) (2014). Blikk på Europa: Kunstnersamtale i forbindelse med åpningen av Fritt Ords arrangement: European Photo Exhibition Award - The New Social - Nobels Fredssenter i Oslo kl. 17.00 mandag 3. mars.

Popular scientific lecture

Show author(s) (2009). Lengselens bilder. Fotografiet i historien om den norske amerikautvandringen. Foredrag.

Show author(s) (2007). Utviklingen av en tidlig kunstfotografiske praksis i Norge:De første amatørene, kameraklubbene og "de profesjonelle amatørene".

Show author(s) (2006). «Da kunstfotografiet kom til Bergen».

Show author(s) (2004). Prosjektpresentasjon av "Lengselens bilder", Setesdalsmuseet,Valle, juni 04.

Academic lecture

Show author(s) (2023). Camera Encounters: Nation-building, Colonialism and the Everyday Life of Settler Women in Northern Norway .

Show author(s) (2022). Unesco Memory of the World and the Representations of Sámi peoples in 19th Century Photography Archives: Sophus Tromholt and Roland Bonaparte.
Show author(s) (2022). Negotiating research: Studying Sámi Photographs as Norwegian Outsiders .
Show author(s) (2022). Activating Absences: Methodological Reflections on the Lost Archives of Early Women Photographers in Denmark and Norway.

Show author(s) (2021). Negotiating research: Studying Sámi Photographs as Norwegian Outsiders.
Show author(s) (2021). Key-note lecture: Buying an Instrument Does Not Necessarily Make You a Musician: Studio Photography and the Digital Revolution.
Show author(s) (2021). Key-note foredrag: «Du blir ikke musiker selv om du kjøper deg et instrument»: Studiofotografiet og den digitale revolusjon".

Show author(s) (2020). «Fotohistoriens blinde felter: Kvinnelige fotografers fravær representert gjennom historien om Solveig Lund».
Show author(s) (2020). Kolonial arv og dekolonial aktivisme – fotografiforskningens nye utfordringer.
Show author(s) (2020). Key-note: Colonial Heritage and Decolonial Activism: New Challenges in Photography Research.
Show author(s) (2020). Fotopionéren Ole Tobias Olsen - i fotohistorisk sammenheng.

Show author(s) (2019). When the Archive becomes a Shrine and the Archivists Hagiographers: The Institutional Afterlife of Sophus Tromholt’s Photographs of Sámi Peoples.
Show author(s) (2019). The Institutional Afterlives of Photographs of Sámi Peoples.
Show author(s) (2019). Striving for independence: Women Photographers in Nordic Studio Culture, 1860-1920. .

Show author(s) (2018). “The Politics of Silence in Marja Helander’s Photography and Film Production”.

Show author(s) (2017). “With a nervously beating heart”: Aesthetics and Politics in the Works of the Norwegian pioneer photographer Solveig Lund.
Show author(s) (2017). Utvikling- sett i relasjon til museets utstillingsfortellinger.
Show author(s) (2017). Silence of Lost Knowledge – The Sámi Artist Marja Helander’s “Jaskes eatnamat”.
Show author(s) (2017). Presentasjon av "Museumsforteljingar: Vi og dei andre i kulturhistoriske museum".
Show author(s) (2017). Pictures of Longing: Migration photographs as grass-root stories.
Show author(s) (2017). Norges dokumentarv og internasjonal forskning: Fotografier fra Sápmi – noen forskningsperspektiver .
Show author(s) (2017). Fotografiet i samisk kultur.
Show author(s) (2017). Colonial Shame and Bourgeois Pride: The Story of an Unknown Painting.
Show author(s) (2017). Colonial Pasts and Forbidden Love: Historical Fictions spurred by an unknown painting.
Show author(s) (2017). Camera Encounters: Norwegian Bourgeois Women's Adventures in Sámi Areas.

Show author(s) (2016). Sáminess seen from Berlin: The Photographic Archive of Museum Europäischer Kulturen II. .
Show author(s) (2016). Sáminess seen from Berlin: The Photographic Archive of Museum Europäischer Kulturen.
Show author(s) (2016). Multi-Layered Museum Stories: Exhibitions in the Intersection between Academic Disciplinary History, Politics and Aesthetics .
Show author(s) (2016). Imagining Sámi people through the camera: Abundance and photographic messiness as in a German museum archive .

Show author(s) (2015). “Time journeys”: Encountering photographs of Sámi peoples/ «Des Lapons" in French Collections.
Show author(s) (2015). “Assimilating the Wild and Primitive: Lajla and other Sámi Heroines in Norwegian fin de siècle-photography”.
Show author(s) (2015). Sámi pasts – industrial presence: Spatial and poetic negotiations of history in Bente Geving’s work Down Under Up North.
Show author(s) (2015). Scrutinizing Lives and Bodies: Photography between Nation-building and Ethnology.
Show author(s) (2015). Performing Academic Masculinity: Sophus Tromholt and Roland Bonaparte's phtographic accounts of Sámi People and Northern Landscapes.

Show author(s) (2014). “The New Social”: Reflections on the Power of Speaking Through Photography.
Show author(s) (2014). “Last Seen Alone on the Prairie”: Migration, Invisible Women Photographers, and Historiographical Challenges.
Show author(s) (2014). ‘We Only Have These Marks in the Landscape:’ The Poetics and Politics of Contemporary Landscape Photography in Sámi Nation Building.
Show author(s) (2014). Visions of the Past: Mapping and Reading Historical Photographs of Sámi people.
Show author(s) (2014). Visions of the Past: Mapping and Reading Historical Photographs of Sámi People.
Show author(s) (2014). Sami people as seen through the early photographic work of Marcus Selmer (1819-1900).
Show author(s) (2014). Norway's radical Other - or just one of many others? Sámi people in the photographs by Marcus Selmer.

Show author(s) (2013). The Beauty in the Frame: Ballet Russe in Scandinavian Visual Culture.
Show author(s) (2013). "PhotoClec – noen erfaringer fra et museologisk forskningsprosjekt?".

Show author(s) (2012). Tracing narratives in the museum space: Contemporary Sami art as an Arena for Post-colonial Experiences.
Show author(s) (2012). Tema fra Lengselens bilder - fotografiet i historien om norsk amerikautvandring.
Show author(s) (2012). Museumsfortellinger: Tale og taushet i kulturhistoriske utstillinger. Keynote-forelesning.
Show author(s) (2012). Museet som sted for alternative historiefortellinger. Utstillingspraksisen ved RDM/SVD.
Show author(s) (2012). Konvensjonell etnografisk utstilling eller subversiv estetikk? Historiefortelling ved samiske museer i Norge.
Show author(s) (2012). Key-note foredrag: Museumsfortellinger: Tale og taushet i norske kulturhistoriske utstillinger.
Show author(s) (2012). Fravær og nærvær: bruken av fotografi i det samiske museet i Karasjok.
Show author(s) (2012). Fortellingen om Norge som museal konstruksjon: estetikk, narrasjon og historiesyn i "Langsomt ble landet vårt eget" på Maihaugen, Lillehammer.

Show author(s) (2011). ”The meaning of it all': Poetry and politics in Peter Rosendahl’s photographs from Spring Grove, Minnesota”.
Show author(s) (2011). ”Shame and Pride: Colonial Past exhibited in Bergen”.
Show author(s) (2011). ”Samekvinnen i monteren: Fotografiets rolle i den museale representasjon av samisk historie og identitet”.
Show author(s) (2011). “Boats or forbidden love? Exhibiting colonial past in the museum”.
Show author(s) (2011). Conventional Ethnographic Display or Subversive Aesthetics? Historical Narratives of the Sami National Museum in Norway.

Show author(s) (2010). ”Lengselens bilder. Fotografiet i historien om den norske amerikautvandringen”.
Show author(s) (2010). Stories told through images: Photography as an entrance to the colonial past.
Show author(s) (2010). Kunsten å gå på kunstutstilling.

Show author(s) (2009). Lengselens bilder. Fotografiet i historien om den norske amerikautvandringen.
Show author(s) (2009). Josefas album.Fra prosjektet Lengselens bilder.
Show author(s) (2009). Faglig ansvarlig for konferanse i NordForsknettverket "Visions of the past", Solstrand, Bergen, 04.09-07.09.09.
Show author(s) (2009). Daguerreotypi i Bergen.
Show author(s) (2009). Amerikabilder.

Show author(s) (2008). The presence of the past and the sense of belonging: Peter Rosendahl’s photographs from Spring Grove, Minnesota.
Show author(s) (2008). Lengselens bilder.
Show author(s) (2008). Alene på prærien. Fotohistoriens usynlige kvinner.

Show author(s) (2007). «Om å skrive Norsk Fotohistorie».
Show author(s) (2007). Stories about invisibility and stardom. Accounting for the position of female photographers in the Norwegian History of Photography.
Show author(s) (2007). Revisions of the History of Photography as we already Know it? Reflections on the Issue of Writing Local or National Histories of Photography.
Show author(s) (2007). Prosjektpresentasjon: "Lengselens bilder - en studie av Amerikafotografiet".
Show author(s) (2007). Pictures of Longing: A Study of "Amerikafotografiet".
Show author(s) (2007). Pictures of Longing. The Photographic Culture of Norwegian US Immigrants.
Show author(s) (2007). On writing a Norwegian History of Photography.
Show author(s) (2007). Last seen alone on the prarie": The history of photography and the invisible women.

Show author(s) (2006). «Norsk fotohistorie frå daguerreotypi til digitalt bilde».
Show author(s) (2006). «Memories of Grandma's Place: The visual family chronicle as an entrance to the history of the Norwegian U.S Emigration».
Show author(s) (2006). «Fra marginalisering til kanon - tendenser i nyere norsk fotokunst».
Show author(s) (2006). «Fotografi som estetisk objekt og historisk dokument: Andreas Larsen Dahls fotografier av norske utvandrere i Wisconsin».
Show author(s) (2006). « From the margins to canonisation: Photography in the Norwegian art arena 1971-2005».
Show author(s) (2006). Fotografi som estetisk objekt og historisk dokument: Andreas Larsen Dahls fotografier av norske utvandrere i Wisconsin».

Show author(s) (2005). «Lengslens bilder: Amerikafotografiet som inngang til emigrasjonshistorien».
Show author(s) (2005). «Just another Boring Tree? Landscape Photography in Norway and the Concept of Photographic Specificality».

Show author(s) (2004). Fotohistoriske tema.
Show author(s) (2004). "Vær så God og send os deres Pottreter. Relasjonen amerikabilde-og brev".
Show author(s) (2004). "The Wild Duck and other Stories - The Discourse on Photography in Nineteenth Century Norway".
Show author(s) (2004). "The Spesifically Norwegian about Norwegian Histories of Photography".

Show author(s) (2003). Lengselens bilder. Om å forske på Amerikabildet.
Show author(s) (2003). America in the Photographs of Andreas Larsen Dahl.
Show author(s) (2003). "Vær saa God og send os deres Pottreter..." -relasjonen Amerikabilde- og brev.

Show author(s) (2002). The Aesthetics of Sports Photography.

Show author(s) (2001). Prosjektbeskrivelseskurs.
Show author(s) (2001). "Der energiene strømmer": Refleksjoner omkring fotografiets posisjon i samtidskunsten.

Show author(s) (2000). Øyeblikksbilder. Noen nedslag i fotografiets historie.
Show author(s) (2000). Reklameestetikk og idolbilder.
Show author(s) (2000). Kurs i fotohistorie.
Show author(s) (2000). Fotohistorie som forskningsobjekt og undervisningsemne.
Show author(s) (2000). Fotografiet som forskningsobjekt og undervisningsemne.
Show author(s) (2000). "Slap-dash and Strong Pictures. The Aesthetics of Rock and Pop Portraiture".

Editorial

Show author(s) (2018). Negotiating the past: addressing Sámi Photography. Journal of Aesthetics and Culture.

Book review

Show author(s) (2019). Torild Gjesvik: Fotograf Knud Knudsen: Veien, reisen, landskapet. Kunst og kultur. 122-124.

Show author(s) (2017). Leirbål og reinsdyrskrotter: Essay om utstillingen "Subsistence", Galleri Nord-Norge, Harstad, Festspillutstilling, festspillene i Nord-Norge, 2017. Klassekampen. 24-25.
Show author(s) (2017). Fargens skrift og fargens klang: Essay om Therese Christensens utstilling i Kunstgarasjen, Bergen, mai 2017. Klassekampen.

Show author(s) (2010). Sverige - sett med amerikanske øyne. Anmeldelse av Jeff Werner(2008): Medelvägens estetik. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. 58-61.

Show author(s) (2003). Verk og ord. Billedkunst (Oslo).

Academic anthology/Conference proceedings

Show author(s) (2021). Contact Zones: Photography, Migration, and the United States. Leuven University Press.
Show author(s) (2021). Adjusting the Lens. Indigenous Activism, Colonial Legacies, and Photographic Heritage. University of British Columbia Press.

Show author(s) (2014). Uncertain Images: Museums and the Work of Photographs. Ashgate.

Show author(s) (2010). Talende bilder. Tekster om kunst og visuell kultur. Scandinavian Academic Press.

Institutional responsibilities

2019
Member of Committee for the University of Bergen’s strategy for research on the HighNorth.

2018
Member of Committee for the development of Departmental research strategy, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen.

2014–2015
Initiator/ member of organizing Committee for the cross-disciplinary seminar "Museological lunch" at Bergen University Museum.

2011–2015
Juryleader for the Holbergprize in Schools, University of Bergen, Norway.

Comissions of trust

2019
Member of Extended Network for the project Voicing Arctic Others, Tromsø University, Norway.

2019–2021
Member of Review Board, International advisory board on research project on Nordic Colonialism at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark (Funded by Carlsbergfondet).

2015–2017
Evaluator. External examiner, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Dublin, Ireland.

2012–2013
Member of The Arts Council of Norway, Committee for Research and Development.

2012–
Member of Review Board, European Science Foundation College of Expert Reviewers.

2010
Member of Review Board, International Evaluation Committee for the Danish Council for Independent Research/ Humanities, Copenhagen, Denmark.

2010–2015
Evaluator: Member of Evaluation Committees for Riksbankens Jubileumsfond: The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences.

2003–2011
Member of leadership groups of the NordForsk networks Nordic Network for the Historyand Aesthetics of Photography Visions of the Past: Images as Historical Sources and theHistory of Art History (30 art historians/ visual culture scholars, senior, mid-career, and PhDstudents, budget NOK 300.000 per year).

2008
Member of the editorial advisory board, Photography & Culture, Bloomsbury Academic, London.

Curatorial work

2013
Curator for the exhibition: Jovisst skal jeg frem! Kvinner bak kamera i Hardangerfjordområdet. Utstilling i anledning jubileet for allmenn stemmerett for kvinner i Norge (“Surely shall I go forth!”: Women Behind the Camera in the Hardanger Fjord area, exhibition in the occasion of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of suffrage for women in Norway).

2009–2010
Curator for the exhibition: Pictures of Longing. Photography in the History ofthe Norwegian US Emigration. Haa Gamle Prestegård, Stavanger, Bryggens Museum, Bergen, Setesdalsmuseet i Valle, Vestnorsk Utvandringssenter, Radøy.

2007
Curator for the exhibition Norsk fotohistorie (Norwegian History of Photography), The National Museum for Photography, Preus, Horten, Norway (with Peter Larsen).

2014
Stipend from Institut national d’histoire d’art Paris (INHA), as part of their "Chercheur invité"-program for the year 2015.

2014
Stipend from International Scholarship program, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin for the year 2015.

2011
Prize: Samlagets fagbokpris (with Hilde Nielssen) for the outline of Museumsforteljingar. Vi og dei andre. (Museum Stories: We and the Others).

2009
Lengselens bilder. Fotografiet i norsk utvandringshistorie, ranked as one of the best non-fictional books in 2009 by the magazine PROSA.

2007
Nominated (with Peter Larsen) for the Brageprize (best non-fictional book of the year) for Norsk fotohistorie. Frå daguerreotype til digitalisering (Norwegian History of Photography. From Daguerreotype to Digitization).

Fields of competence