Niclas Östlind becomes Professor of Photography

What made you choose photography? 
– My grandfather worked in advertising, and like many in that industry, he was interested in photography. Through him, my interest was sparked. It was the late 1970s, and most schools had darkrooms, so I took photography as an elective subject. I think one reason I ended up in photography was also due to the low entry barriers and how easy it was to do it on your own. Although I took a vocational photography program in high school, I wasn't drawn to photography as a profession but rather as an artistic medium. My passion for photography grew in the mid-1990s and onwards, primarily focusing on curatorial, editorial, and pedagogical forms. This has resulted in exhibitions, texts, publications, teaching, and over the past fifteen years, research. 
 

You’ve contributed to two recent opinion pieces, one of which addresses photography as “the forgotten stepchild” of cultural policy. What risks do you see in this? 
– Photography has a profound impact on both individual lives and society at large. However, Sweden lacks a well-thought-out plan for how photographic images should be collected, preserved, and made accessible to the public and researchers. As a result, many image collections are not properly maintained, and significant parts of our visual cultural heritage risk being destroyed or discarded, which has major consequences for our ability to interpret and understand both the present and our history. There are various institutions with photographic collections, but no one has overarching responsibility, and so far, no Minister of Culture has been willing to address this issue. In the article, my co-authors and I call for a government inquiry on how photographic cultural heritage should be best preserved and shared. 

The second opinion piece discusses the importance of artistic research. What role do you think artistic research can play, both in academia and society at large? 
– The article is a collaboration with author and researcher Fredrik Nyberg and connects to recent debates that have either praised or criticized artistic research in a one-sided and overly simplistic way. The purpose was to use concrete examples to highlight and discuss what artistic research actually does. The role that artistic research can play is connected to its roots in various artistic practices and experiences, which means it has other opportunities to address questions and subjects compared to, for instance, the natural sciences or sociology. Art encompasses, among other things, exploratory dimensions that contribute to deeper understanding and new perspectives. There is artistic research that increases knowledge about one’s own means of expression and their possibilities, but increasingly, artistic research is part of multidisciplinary projects on topics like democracy, migration, and climate change, aimed at addressing societal and planetary challenges. 

How would you describe your own research? 
– First and foremost, it’s grounded in my practice as a curator, and methodologically, exhibitions serve as a tool in my investigations. Through selection and montage-like assemblages of photographs and printed material, the exhibition format creates different interpretations of the individual pieces and the larger stories that the material generates. It’s about both the medium and the objects, as well as the worlds and contexts the material is part of and brings forth in its interaction with users. The curatorial approach also means that my research typically happens in collaboration with other people, institutions, and disciplines. I have a particular interest in published photography and wrote the book Published: Photobooks in Sweden (2019). What also becomes evident when looking at my research from the dissertation Performing History (2014) and beyond is a consistent desire to both understand the use of photography in new ways and to highlight and problematize how different historical narratives are constructed. 

Can you tell us about something exciting coming up? 
– In mid-February, I visited Kiruna for the first time to begin an artistic research project on photographer Borg Mesch, who worked there from 1900 until his death in 1956. The project, initiated by Maria Lind, the director of KIN (the Art Museum of the North), invites two artists, an artist collective and me, to explore various aspects of the "mountain photographer's" work over several years, both individually and together. I’m excited to see how it all develops. Additionally, I’ve been invited to participate in a research project starting later this spring about the Swedish-born photographer Guillaume Berggren. I am also involved in two upcoming events in Stockholm: on March 8, I will discuss the works of photographers Sune Jonsson, Hasse Persson, and Mathias Johansson, which will be displayed in an exhibition at GSA Gallery, and on March 18, photographer Olof Glemme and I will talk about his new book at Konst-ig. You’re all warmly welcome!