Mårten Snickare, Department of Art History, Stockholm University
2009-2014

In recent years, questions of globalization have come to form an increasingly important part of the study of the early modern world. An international and interdisciplinary research field has emerged in which scholars study a world linked together by colonial relations, trade routes and diplomatic contacts; a world in which people, objects and ideas moved rapidly between the continents. My project forms part of that field: it deals with objects that originated from places outside of the Christian European sphere and were collected and displayed in seventeenth century Sweden. How did these objects reach Sweden? How were they displayed? At what occasions were they looked at and used? In negotiating issues like these, the project approaches more fundamental questions about the role of Sweden in the emerging global and colonial system, and about the formation of a national identity.

Gradually, the project's geographical delimitation has become more stringent. While the application talks of "non-European objects", my present focus is on places to which seventeenth-century Sweden established explicit colonial relations: North America (Nova Suecia 1638-55), West Africa (Cabo Corso 1650-63) and Sápmi. Theoretically, the project is situated at the intersection between postcolonial discourse and the theorizing of the concept of display. In the course of my work, questions of objecthood and materiality have become more important. Taking the writings of Arjun Appadurai and W J T Mitchell as points of departure, I approach material objects as historical agents with the power to arouse emotions and trigger actions. I argue, also, that the objects of my study have the capacity to bring about change.

RESULTS

An important result of my project is the rich image that it provides of the close relation between collecting and colonialism in seventeenth century Sweden. To a higher degree than usually acknowledged, early modern Sweden was part of the colonial system as well as of the early phase in the history of the museum. In addition to well-known and well-preserved collections, like the royal armoury or the collections of Carl Gustav Wrangel at Skokloster, I provide a detailed image of less renowned collections, such as professor Johannes' Schefferus Kunstkammer in Uppsala and the Kunstkammer of the courtier Mårten Törnhielm in his manor outside Stockholm. In these and other collections, objects from the colonies played an important role next to European works of art, domestic antiquities, and naturalia. I show how the collectors' practices of ordering, displaying and researching can be conceived as part of the colonial project of taking control of, and producing knowledge about, the world.

Another result is that the objects of my study all carry marks of hybridity. Far from being stable expressions of a distant culture, the objects prove to be marked by cultural encounters and clashes. One object could be composed of materials from different continents, while another could join together symbols and signs from different religions. Through acquisition and use, the objects have undergone physical and conceptual changes. Such hybrid objects challenge the institutionalized boundaries of later centuries between art and ethnography, authentic and false, distant and close. I use the concept of "powerful objects" in order to characterize these visually pregnant and historically charged objects with their capacity to transcend categorizations and, thereby, shed light on the arbitrariness of modern categories such as "art" or "ethnography".

A third important result concerns the present situation of the objects. The postcolonial turn has turned the existence of non-European objects in European museums into a problem. On what grounds do the objects belong to European museum collections in the first place? Who is in control of the narratives that the objects are made to tell? In the project, I show that a deeper knowledge of the history of the objects and of their transfers in time and space may contribute to the current discussion. Could we actually learn something from the seventeenth century? Assuredly, it was a time marked by colonial exploitation and violence. At the same time, however, the display strategies of the period are characterized by openness, abundance, and playful juxtapositions, in contrast to the violent distinctions made in later centuries between art/ethnography, nature/culture, European/exotic.

TOPICS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

The issue of Sámi material culture has come to play an increasingly important part in the project. Sweden's systematic colonization of Sápmi involved an endeavour to take control of objects, particularly objects connected with religious practices. Many of these objects were destroyed while others were incorporated in the collections of the colonizers. This kind of epistemic violence continues today by means of the maintenance of dichotomies such as centre/periphery, or art/ethnography. In collaboration with the art historian Charlotte Bydler, I am arranging a panel around these issues at the Nordic art historical conference, NORDIK 2015. The panel is thought of as a starting point of new research.

To a high degree, my research has been focused on the Swedish collectors and the objects of their collections. However, in the course of the project, other historical agents have made themselves increasingly felt, viz. the skilful artisans in seventeenth-century North America, West Africa and Sápmi who gave shape to the "powerful objects". How can I, as a scholar, approach the historical agents behind these "powerful objects", considering the scarcity of written sources? To what degree could the very objects, material traces of skilled work, be used as sources? These are fundamental questions that I want to get back to.

INTERNATIONAL RELEVANCE AND CONNECTIONS

The project takes place within two highly topical fields of research. Firstly, the research on globalization, colonialism and transcultural encounters in the early modern world, a field that is particularly strong in the Anglo-Saxon world. I have had the opportunity to meet with scholars on that field, and to present my own research, on a stay as a summer fellow of Clark Art Institute in 2010 as well as on conferences in London 2011 and 2014, and Warwick 2012. Secondly, the research on museum, collecting and display, that has a strong position in the German-speaking world. Professor Horst Bredekamp's studies of the early modern Kunstkammer must be pointed out here together with Professor Charlotte Klonk's writings about exhibition spaces and display strategies. In the course of the project, I have had continuous exchange with Professor Klonk. In 2011 I invited her to Stockholm and in 2012 I spent a semester at Humboldt University on her invitation. My project has also involved exchange with Professor Jacqueline van Gent at the University of Western Australia, director of the centre for "The History of Emotions". We are currently discussing future collaboration around the topics of colonialism, objects and emotions.

RESEARCH INFORMATION OUTSIDE OF THE ACADEMIA

In the course of the project I got involved in the preparation for the exhibition "Baroque", a collaboration between Nationalmuseum and Kulturhuset in Stockholm. The theme of the exhibition is correspondences between baroque and contemporary art; as part of the exhibition committee I particularly worked on the issue of globalization in the seventeenth century and today. In a catalogue essay as well as shorter exhibition texts, I present some of my research results for the exhibition visitors.

MAIN PUBLICATION

Most important among the publications is the monograph "The King's Tomahawk. Others on Display in Baroque Sweden". Its three main chapters correspond to the three main results discussed above. The first chapter, "Others in the Kunstkammer. Baroque Practices of Collecting and Display", explores Kunstkammern in seventeenth century Sweden, the role of colonial objects in the Kunstkammern and the practices round these objects. In the second chapter, "Object Biographies", I trace four objects from their origin in seventeenth-century North America, Africa and Sápmi to their present whereabouts. The last chapter, "Learning from the Kunstkammer? Objects and Display in a Post-Colonial World", is a discussion on the problematic situation today and on the ways in which a historical understanding of the objects may contribute to the current debate. The monograph will be finished during 2014. Among available publications, I want to point out "The King's Tomahawk: On the Display of the Other in Seventeenth Century Sweden, and After" (2011) which is an introduction to the project, a case study of one powerful object, and a discussion on the concept of "display".

Publications

”The King’s Tomahawk: On the Display of the Other in Seventeenth Century Sweden, and After”, in: Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History, Volume 80, Issue 2, 2011, pp. 124-35 (peer reviewed).

”Gränser och gränsöverskridanden. Om barocken och samtidskonsten / Boundaries and Transgressions. About the Baroque and Contemporary Art”, in: Barockt, red. Estelle af Malmborg, Kulturhuset/Nationalmuseum 2014, pp. 10-21. 

”Kontroll, begär och kunskap. Den koloniala kampen om Goavddis”, in: RIG Kulturhistorisk Tidskrift, Issue 2, 2014. (peer reviewed).

”Research in the Kunstkammer. Two Swedish Examples”, (submitted to Journal of the History of Collections in May 2014).

”The King’s Tomahawk. Others on Display in Baroque Sweden” (book manuscript to be submitted to an international publishing house in 2014).

CONFERENCE PAPERS, LECTURES AND SEMINARS
”Karl XI:s tomahawk. Samlande och utställande av utomeuropeiska föremål i stormaktstiden Sverige”, paper at the workshop ”Collecting, Displaying and Consuming Art in Early Modern Europe”, Stockholm University, 2010.

“The King’s Tomahawk. Collecting and Displaying the Other in Seventeenth Century Sweden”, seminar at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2010.

”Performing the Other. A Postcolonial Approach to Early Modern Festival”, paper at “Centre for Early Modern Exchanges Launch Conference”, University College London, 2011.

”Displaying Others. Non-European Objects at Skokloster Castle”, paper at the conference ”Global Commodities. The Material Culture of Early Modern Connections, 1400-1800”, University of Warwick, 2012.

”Displaying Others in Baroque Sweden – and today”, lecture at Humboldt Universität, Berlin, 2013.

”Objects and Emotions in a Colonial Context”, paper at the workshop ”Gender, Emotions and Material Culture in Scandinavian History”, Umeå University, 2013.

“Traces, Signs, Agents or Fetishes? Reflections on the display and conceptualization of non-Western objects in early modern Sweden – and today”, paper at the workshop ”Heritage and Critical Postcolonialism”, The Swedish History Museum, 2013.

“The Tomahawk of Charles XI: Others on Display in Baroque Sweden and Today”, paper at ”Global Things Workshop”, Royal Holloway University of London, 2014.

”Koloniala objekt”, seminar at Världskulturmuseet, Göteborg, 2014.

”Kontroll, begär och kunskap. Den koloniala kampen om goavddis i Sverige runt 1700”, lecture at the annual meeting with Barockakademien/The Baroque Academy, 2014.