Lager Vestberg, Nina | 2025
Photography and Culture
In 1905, Norway re-emerged as an independent nation after having been under Danish rule since the 1380s and then in a union with Sweden since 1814. The same year, a national Photographers’ Exhibition opened to great acclaim in capital Kristiania (now Oslo), showcasing the artistic and technological prowess of both photographers and photomechanical reproducers working in Norway. Reviewers emphasized that the exhibition demonstrated how Norwegian photographers and process printers were on a par with “foreign” practitioners, while the chair of the organizing committee explicitly described the work of its participants as being “in the service of the fatherland.” This article analyses events and artefacts that reveal new connections between nationalism and the mass-reproduction of images. Drawing on published accounts dating from 1884 to 1905, it shows how photographic and photomechanical reproduction technologies contributed to nation-building in Norway. On the same basis, it argues that nationalist sentiment also played a part in promoting the adoption and development of photomechanical mass-reproduction technologies. The article concludes with a reflection on the digitization programme undertaken by the National Library of Norway since the early 2000s, which allows research, review, and reproduction of recorded representations by means of a new set of technologies.
