Mette Sandbye

Primary fields of research

Professor of Photography Studies.

Director of the research group Thinking Photography Today at The Department of Arts and Cultural Studies.

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 as everyday culture.

I have published several monographies: Fra Instamatic til Instagram. Familiefotografiets fortællinger 2025, Kedelige Billeder. Fotografiets snapshotæstetik 2007, Manual til dansk samtidskunst 2006 (with Lisbeth Bonde), Mindesmærker. Tid og erindring i fotografiet 2001, Sex, løgn og fotografi. Essays om kunst, fotografi, snapshots og virkelighed 1995 (with Erik Steffensen), Det iscenesatte fotografi 1992.

I edited the first history of Danish photography, Dansk Fotografihistorie 2004, and I have published several anthologies, among others Digital Snaps. The New Face of Photography (eds with Jonas Larsen, I.B. Tauris, 2014).

Current research

In 2025 I published a book in Danish on the family photo album, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, including material from Denmark, England, US and Japan and a fokus on materiality, emotions, social exchange and aesthetic as well as historical narrative. The foundation behind was several publications in English by me.

Working on early women photographers as 'culture.' This has resulted in a Nordic anthology: Striving for Independence. Women Pioneers in Early Nordic Studio Photography, 1860-1920 (eds with Sigrid Lien, De Gruyter, 2026).  

In 2025, I am working on the collective research project In the Shadow of War. Denmark, the Nordic Countries, and the Return of Geopolitics (hosted by Nordic Humanities Center, KU/SDU), researching particularly photography in Denmark related to the Ukraine war.

Fields of interest

Main research interest: A continuous investigation of photography as representation, effect and affect, in art as well as in broader cultural history - in society as such

Teaching

• Underviser fast i "Den moderne kulturs historie" på Litteraturvidenskab og sommetider i "Introduktion til samtidskunst" på faget Kunsthistorie.

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
• 2012-2020  Head of the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies
• Autumn 2021 3 months visiting professor, University of Oxford, The Department of The History of Art
• 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).

- External Examiner at Danish Universities.

- 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 and at IADT, Dublin, 2018-2020.

- 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.

- Committee member, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, 2017-2020.

- Committee member, cultural heritage program of the Augustinus Foundation, 2021

Selected publications in English:

-Symbolic Imprints. Photography and Visual Culture. Ed. Lars Kiel Bertelsen, Rune Gade, Mette Sandbye. Aarhus Univ. Press, 1999.

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

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

- “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.

- “The Family Photo Album as Transformed Social Space in the Age of ‘Web 2.0’”. In Throughout (ed. Ulrik Ekman), MIT Press, 2013.

- “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.

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

- “Performing and Deforming the Family Archive”. In Performing Archives (eds. Gunhild Borggreen and Rune Gade), Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013.

- Digital Snaps: The New Face of Photography. I.B. Tauris, London 2014. International Library of Visual Culture, vol. 7. Eds. Sandbye, M & Larsen.

- “Blasting the Language of Colonialism : Three Contemporary Photo-Books on Greenland”. KULT - Postkolonial Temaserie, Vol. 14 (New Narratives on the Postcolonial Arctic), 2016.

- “A Farewell to the Family Album? and Case Study on the Cultural History of Wedding Photography”, in M. Neumüller (ed.): The Routledge Companion to Photography and Visual Culture, Routledge, 2018.

- “Selfies and Purikura as Affective, Aesthetic Labour”, in J. Eckel, J. Ruchatz, S. Wirth (eds.): Exploring the Selfie: Historical, Theoretical, and Analytical Approaches to Digital Self-Photography, Springer International Publishing, 2018.

- "New Mixtures: Migration, War and Cultural Differences in Contemporary Art-Documentary Photography" 2018, I : Photographies 11, 2-3, 2018.