How did photography shape ideas about agrarianism and the future of agriculture in twentieth-century Norway? From the late 1930s to the end of the 1950s, Norwegian agriculture underwent profound change as rationalization, mechanization, and the expanding welfare state transformed the conditions of farming. This dissertation examines how photography was integral to how farmers, agricultural organizations, and public institutions made sense of these changes.
I argue that photography made it possible to envision an agrarian modernity: a distinct form of modern life in which the family farm and industrial development could be seen as compatible—even mutually reinforcing. Rather than merely documenting a disappearing rural society, photography helped articulate a future in which agriculture remained central to national identity, local community, and postwar reconstruction.
Drawing on extensive archival research, the dissertation examines four photographic projects: the book project and farm survey Norske Gardsbruk; Widerøe’s aerial photography of Norwegian farms; the Ministry of Agriculture’s visual campaigns during the Marshall Plan era; and the photographic displays at the 1959 Agricultural Jubilee Exhibition in Oslo. Together, these cases demonstrate how photography mediated between tradition and change, local communities and national ambitions, and the agrarian past and a rapidly modernizing future.
Methodologically, the study treats photography not merely as a collection of images but as a dispersed set of practices involving photographers, institutions, publications, archives, and viewers. “Picturing the farm” therefore means more than depicting rural life: it describes how images projected possible futures and made new agricultural identities, aspirations, and forms of community imaginable.
By bringing together political history, visual culture, and the history of photography, the dissertation offers a new account of how Norwegian farmers represented themselves and envisioned their future in the nascent postwar industrial welfare state.
Trial lecture
Designated topic: Visual cultures of fascism have returned as a topic of great concern for historians of photography. Address the emergence of forms of mass photography, their importance to fascist (or fascist-adjacent) visual cultures, and the complex and contested legacy of such photographic practice.
Time and place: Thursday 15 October 2026, 16:15 PM, Arne Næss Aud., Georg Morgenstiernes hus
Evaluation committee
- Associate Professor Stephanie Schwartz, University College London (first opponent)
- Reader Tom Allbeson, Cardiff University (second opponent)
- Professor Ina Blom, University of Oslo (committee administrator)
Chair of the defence
- Senior Lecturer Eirik Welo, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Professor Pasi Väliaho, University of Oslo
- Professor May-Brith Ohman Nielsen, University of Agder