Mette Sandbye

Primary fields of research

Head of Department since 2012. Professor of Photography Studies since 2015.

Primary research areas

With an educational background from Comparative Literature and Modern Culture & Cultural Communication and a PhD on photography and memory in contemporary art, I have specialized in photography studies with a focus on photography's history and theory, contemporary art, the 20th century avant-garde art, and vernacular photography.

Current research

I currently do research on the relationship between amateur photography and collective history since the 1960s centered on the family photo album and a focus on materiality, social exchange, communication and personal as well as collective storytelling. In this connection, I (with Jonas Larsen) edited the anthology Digital Snaps. The New Face of Photography (I.B. Tauris, 2014); an overall survey of vernacular and everyday photography's “new media ecology” in the light of the digital changes.

Current research

Arbejder for tiden med en undersøgelse af familieafotoalbummet fra 1960'erne til i dag med dansk, amerikansk og japansk materiale og et fokus på materialitet, social udveksling, kommunikation og personlig såvel som kollektiv historiefortælling.

Har i den forbindelse redigeret og udgivet antologien Digital Snaps (I.R. Tauris, 2014, m. Jonas Larsen); en samlet undersøgelse af hverdagsfotografiets 'nye medieøkologi' i lyset af de digitale forandringer.

Fields of interest

Teaching

• Underviser fast i "Den moderne kulturs historie".

Vejledningsområder

• Fotografiets historie, samtidskunst, det 20. århundredes avantgardekunst
• Hovedinteresse: En generel og fortløbende undersøgelse af fotografiet som repræsentation og virkemåde, kunstnerisk såvel som kulturhistorisk.

Knowledge of languages

CV

• 1990 MA in Comparative Literature and Modern Culture and Cultural Communication, Univ. of Copenhagen. MA thesis: American Staged Photography.
• 1999   Ph.d. degree, dissertation: ”Memorials. Time, memory, and narrative in contemporary photobased art”.
• 1999-2000   Post doc scholar at the interdisciplinary research project “Reality, Realism, The Real in Contemporary Visual Media and Art”, Aarhus University.
• 2001-2004  Assistant Professor at The Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Univ. of Copenhagen.
• Since 2005 Associate Professor and Head of the Study Programme (2004-2007), same place.
• Since 1995 Art critic at Weekendavisen.
• Spring 2007  6 months visiting scholar at Northwestern University, Chicago
• Autumn 2010 3 months visiting scholar at Waseda University, Tokyo
• Since 2012  Head of the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies
• Since 2015 Professor of Photography Studies

Other positions:

- Editor of Dansk Fotografihistorie (The History of Danish Photography). Gyldendal 2004. (The first national history of photography).

- Articles on photography in The National Encyclopedia and Weilbach’s Dictionary on Art.

 – Co-editor of anthology on the history of modern culture (with Mikkel Bogh, Martin Zerlang, Henrik Reeh, Gert Balling. Gads forlag, 2006).

- External Examiner at: Æstetik og Kultur, Aarhus Univ. Kommunikation og Journalistisk, RUC. Center for Kulturstudier, Univ. of Southern Denmark.

- Chair of ”The Nordic Network of The History and Aesthetics of Photography” 2003-2007

- External Examiner in Visual Culture and Theory at London College of Printing, The London Institute, now University of the Arts London, 2001-2005.

- Board member of the scholarship section, Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenborg, Sweden, 2002-2003.

- Committee member for the Hasselblad Award 2010.

- External Examiner at The School of Photography, University of Gothenborg, Sweden, 2002-2004.

- Member of the Committee for Visual Arts, Danish Arts Council, 2007-2011.

Selected publications in English:

-Symbolic Imprints. Photography and Visual Culture. Ed. Lars Kiel Bertelsen, Rune Gade, Mette Sandbye. Aarhus Univ. Press, 1999. Introduction + “Photographic Anamnesia”, pp. 1-16 + 180-201.

-”When Snapshots Became Art – Documentary and Conceptual Strategies Around 1970”. Arken Bulletin, vol 1. 2002, Arken Museum of Contemporary Art. pp. 49-58.

- “What is Photo History and What is A Photo Historian?” http://www.hf.uib.no/nnhap/rosendalpapers/ 2003

- “Performing the Everyday. Two Danish Photo-Books from the ‘70s”. In Performative Realism , Rune Gade og Anne Jerslev (eds.), pp. 177-144. Museum Tusculanum Press, Cph. 2005.

- “Making Visible: Thoughts on the First Danish History of Photography”. Konsthistorisk Tidsskrift, vol. 74. no. 2, 2005, Routledge, Stockholm, pp. 69-81, peer reviewed.

-“Anders Moseholm: In Between”. In Anders Moseholm: Right Here in Front of You. Sophienholm and Vejle Art Museum, 2009, pp. 5-35.

- “The Disappearance of the Family Album?”. Filter, Cph. No. 4, Winter 2009, pp. 38-43 and 108-110.

- “Making Pictures Talk. The re-opening of ‘a dead city’ through vernacular photography as a catalyst for the performance of memories”. In Britta Timm Knudsen and Anne Marit Waade (eds.): Re-investing Authenticity. Tourism, Place & Emotions, Tourism and Cultural Change Book Series, Centre for Tourism & Cultural Change, Leeds Metropolitan University, 2010, peer reviewed.

- “The Family Photo Album as Transformed Social Space in the Age of ‘Web 2.0’”. In Throughout (ed. Ulrik Ekman), MIT Press, in print 2010, peer reviewed.

- “Emotive Templates: The Family Photo Album and Its Presentation of the Good Life”. In Amerika og det gode liv, 1950-70. Materiel kultur i Skandinavien i 1950’erne og 1960’erne (eds. Dorte Gert Simonsen and Iben Vyff), Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2011, pp. 173-194, peer reviewed.

- “Colour Cool. Keld Helmer-Petersen”, book introduction, Errata Editions, New York, in print 2012.

- “’Staged Photography’ Revisited”. Göteborg Universitet, webpage, in print.

- “It has not been – it is. The signaletic transformation of photography”, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, CoAction Publishing, peer reviewed, 2012.

- “Performing and Deforming the Family Archive”. In Performing Archives (eds. Gunhild Borggreen and Rune Gade), Museum Tusculanum Press, in print, peer reviewed.