COLONIALISM Norwegians on adventure and big business in Africa and the Pacific

The exhibition is themed around Norwegians and Norwegian interests on some of the most unthinkable exotic places in the world.  It takes us to places like ”hutaheiti”, a Norwegian usage of the Tahitian word Otaheiti for Tahiti and also of “a place very far off”, and to lands ”where the pepper grows”.

We start out in the South Seas, where adventurous Norwegians created a life for themselves on tropical islands. Captains on Norwegian ships who collected memories and curious objects from places they passed through. We move on to the big-time spenders – shareholders and investors — people who invested their money in large plantations.  We meet dandy class members who kept an eye on thousands of workers from their verandas and had plenty of profit to spend on weekend safaris. We end when ideas about human rights emerged on the political scene and rebellions made most colonialists leave.

The exhibition illustrates individuals and exotic places through simple wooden boxes, demonstrating the short lived moments and lives in transit. Out of the boxes flow stories of how Norwegians made these exotic places into their homes, and also how these places changed them.

The exhibition opens on Thursday 25 June at 2 p.m.

Place: Bergen Museum, the Natural History Collections, Museplass 3

Concurrently, the book by the same title: COLONIAL TIMES – Norwegians on adventure and big business in Africa and the Pacific will be launched, edited by Kirsten Alsaker Kjerland and Knut M. Rio, published by Spartacus Forlag.

The book and the exhibition give a multiple image of Norwegian involvement in colonial trade, shipping, and management of plantations in Africa and the Pacific in the period 1850 – 1950.

 Research as Departure Point

The purpose behind the book and the exhibition ”COLONIAL TIMES” is to disseminate knowledge of the finds from the research project “In the Wake of Colonialism”. Norwegian commercial interests in colonial Africa and Oceania.  This is a project that has been running at the University of Bergen / UNIFOB GLOBAL since 2005. The project will disseminate knowledge about the topic, and show that Norwegians were considerably more involved in the colonialism we in this period merely associate with European superpowers. The aim is that the book and the exhibition will inspire debate and knowledge about Norwegian involvement in colonialism.

Norway and the World

The crew on a Norwegian ship that anchored in a bay in French Congo at the end of the 1930s discovered to their amazement that one of the natives understood some Norwegian words. The explanation to this astonishing phenomenon was that at one time in the past there used to be a Norwegian whaling station there. The small town with the station was still there, and so were some Negroes who had been working for the Norwegians at the station. That is how some of them had learned Norwegian. The houses in the Negro village were built from boxing material that the whalers had left behind. 'Powdered Milk', 'Soap Powder', 'Condensed Milk', etc. are gleaming at us from the cabin walls. The Negro women were clad in 'Dalen Portland Cement' sacks, and from a cabin tunes from the Nøtterøy waltz were heard. (Quote from a book by Ingrid Semmingsen: Veien Mot vest. Utvandringen fra Norge (The Way West: Emigration from Norway, 1865-1915)

When I arrived at the Solomon Islands for the first time in 1986, ... I was standing on the deck ... while the ship drifted towards the Marovo Lagoon. I looked at the stars and at the phosphorescence of the sea following big and small fish in the black sea, conversing in English with a cultivated, old gentleman, Mr. Luke Pitu, who was a Methodist parson in one of the villages of Marovo. He asked me where I came from, and when I started telling him about the far-off land Norway, he said: «Norway, yes! That is a place we know something about, because we have Norwegians living here, you see! You should drop by an island here called Mahoro, and pay a visit to Erik Andersen. He is from Norway, or that is to say, his father came from Norway. And then we have the Paulsen family further down here, by the Roviana Lagoon. Ask for Peter Vic, his family name is Paulsen and his father was a Norwegian.» ( From Edvard Hviding’s article «Eventyrlyst og tilpasningsevne. Nordmenns liv på 'de forferdelige Salomonøyene', ca. 1870--1930» i boken KOLONITID)

This exhibition presents glimpses of some of the places where Norwegians made their mark in colonial times from 1850 – 1950: Africa and the Pacific

The world was brought closer to us

The colonial epoch is often seen as a time of high-level politics and competition among the European states about land and continents. First and foremost, this epoch was characterised by enormous upheavals in society, moral paradoxes and the development of completely new ways of thinking. It was also a time where new impressions from a big world unnoticingly were brought home to us in Norway through people and commodities in ships that crossed the entire globe.

Ships carrying exotic goods were sailing the shipping lanes of the oceans of the world. Coffee beans, tobacco, tea, spices, cocoa, sugar, whale blubber, coconut oil, and logs were brought from distant lands and busy harbours, and then further processed, transported and sold. The money that small family businesses has saved for generations, could now all of a sudden be moved – and used in exchange for coconut in Mozambique or sugar in Hawaii.

Humans on the move         

People started travelling, some as wealthy buyers of land and commodities, and others representing nations hunting for new territories. Some were hunting for new discoveries, adventure, and romance. But the bulk of them were thousands of workers who were moving to find work on the plantations.

Responsible for the exhibition: Associate Professor Knut Rio, Bergen Museum.

Design: Scandinavian Surface

Conservators: Soraya Rodriguez and Katrine Lund

Films by: Rolf Scott

Sound and lights: Sigve Sælensminde and Martin Flack

The exhibition is based on the research project ”In the Wake of Colonialism”, and has been set up with the help of contributions from many different researchers at the University of Bergen, and from outside institutions:

Kirsten Alsaker Kjerland

Anne Katrine Bang

Edvard Hviding

Jon Tikivanotau Michael Jonassen

Bjørn Enge Bertelsen

Rolf Scott

Elsa Reiersen

Espen Wæhle

Erlend Eidsvik

Knut M. Nygaard

Dag Børresen

Svein Ivar Angell

Gustav Sætra

Borrowed objects belong to Bergen Maritime Museum, Elsa Reiersen, Chris Faye, Bergen City Museum, Museum Vest/the Foundation Norwegian Fisheries and Trade Museum, and Norway’s leading coffee roaster: Kaffehuset Friele.

Funded by Bergen Museum, Unifob Global, Fritt Ord (The Freedom of Expression Foundation, Oslo, Norway) and Norges forskningsråd (the Research Council of Norway)