Elin BergmanPostdoc
About me
Reseacher in art history, earned my PhD in May 2024 with the thesis The Garden’s Texture : Spatial, material, and social perspectives on privately owned gardens in Sweden circa 1900-1930 (title translated). The dissertation is written in Swedish but with an English summary.
Since January 2025, I am working on a postdoc project concerning the green spaces of the general art and industrial exhibitions in focus: the designed exhibition space with trees, bushes and flowers which contributed on an elementary level to the experience of the exhibition as a whole. Furthermore, these exhibitions usually also included designated spaces for horticultural developments and contests where produce from kitchen gardens, flowers and indoor plants were showcased. Some exhibitions also included miniature gardens designed on site, and models, plans, and photographs all conveyed gardening ideals to the general public. These aspects of the exhibition spaces have not been explored to any larger extent, and the aim of this project is therefore to contribute with new knowledge about these important elements of the exhibition spaces of which many were transformed into public parks after the exhibitions closed.
Teaching
I have teached on all levels, which includes the courses below:
KV1500, Art History I
KV2290, Art History II (supervision)
KV1000, Art, Architecture and Visual Culture in Sweden
KV1255, Churches and Monasteries, Towns and Castles
KV1380, Contemporary Architecture and Landscape Architecture
KV3050, Art History - Bachelor's Course (supervision)
KV5520, Landscape as Memory, Representation and Construction
Research projects
Publications
A selection from Stockholm University publication database
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Trädgårdens textur: Rumsliga, materiella och sociala perspektiv på den privatägda trädgården i Sverige cirka 1900-1930
2024. Elin Bergman.
Thesis (Doc)Read more about Trädgårdens texturThe subject of this dissertation is privately owned gardens in Sweden circa 1900–1930 and aims to identify and make visible their meaning and impact on different societal levels. Sweden, like many other European countries, faced profound societal changes during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was in part due to a major increase in population, the development of new urban environments, a growing working class, and migration within and out of the country. The culmination of these circumstances had an impact on the development of society, more broadly, and on housing, in particular.
Prior scholarly inquiries across multiple disciplines have studied the home as a locus for various social relations and expressions of aesthetic ideals. However, the outdoor space of the home has not been specifically included or emphasized in previous research. The focus of this dissertation is therefore to examine gardens within the private sphere – in physical form as well as in their conceptions – concentrating on spatial organization and material constitution within the social context of the time. The aim is to make visible the ways in which the garden acted as an important part of the construction of the ideal home, in theory as well as in practice. In so doing, gardens and garden practices of the early twentieth century are historically, culturally, and socially situated.
The theoretical framework is built upon the concept of texture which combines the theoretical fields of spatial theory and materiality. The approach and the use of texture emphasize the material elements that are essential in the constitution of the garden (but not always considered meaningful in their own right), as well as the relationship between humans and their surroundings, particularly with regard to home-making and relating practices. It includes analyses of individual materials’ physical conditions and the way they are experienced with the senses. Furthermore, it highlights the material and visual merging of materials as a perceived whole and the relation of the parts to that whole. Finally, it elucidates the socio-cultural relations between objects and environments which are then experienced, used, and changed by human subjects.
The dissertation demonstrates the various meanings of the garden and garden practices, based on a vast set of empirical sources selected on principles of geographical and demographical diversity during the selected time period. The result is presented in case studies. These include analyses of garden literature, the work of county gardeners employed by the Agricultural Society, and educational institutions such as Lillie Landgren’s Torshäll (Dalarna County). Furthermore, particular sites are investigated, such as the mining town of Boliden (Västerbotten County), and the private gardens of Crown Princess Margareta at Sofiero (Skåne County) and Ellen Key at Strand (Östergötand County). The study reveals the multifaceted functions of the garden. The conception of the garden’s potential was made visible in publications and visual material, which provided exemplary gardens, cultivated by – and at the same time cultivating – the human actors. The study’s emphasis on the manual elaboration of materials with a certain aesthetic ideal or practical purpose as the objective confirms that the garden is a result of spatial, material, and social prerequisites, all coalescing as the texture of the garden.
Show all publications by Elin Bergman at Stockholm University
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