In 1856, several plaster busts were created by a French expedition in Iceland and Greenland, revealing one of the many ways these countries were a part of European 19th-century colonial and imperial projects. Prince Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte—the son of Emperor Napoleon's younger brother— headed the expedition, but his journey reflected France's combined military and scientific interests in the far North, particularly regarding resource extraction in Greenland and Iceland. Three additional busts were also created through an official visit to Scandinavia during the same trip. The busts became part of a wider collection of other busts made during similar expeditions (including l’Urville's visit to Australia and New Zealand), intended to show different racial groups across the world, and later replicas were sold to several museums in France and Spain.   

The presentation will focus on these casts as “contact points” (Loftsdóttir 2023), in multiple senses, exposing Europe’s imperial history and the Nordic countries’ involvement in different racial regimes. It focuses especially on the making of the Icelandic busts and on what they say about Iceland’s inclusion in Europe’s racial regimes, reflecting on Iceland’s changed positionality. Furthermore, it asks what the “unfolding” of the busts (M’charek 2014) brings into a present characterised by the persistent positioning of racism as irrelevant or non-existent, as in the case of the Nordic countries.  

Kristín Loftsdóttir is professor of Anthropology at the University of Iceland. Her research focuses on (im)mobility, notions of exceptionalism, whiteness, gender, decoloniality, racism, crisis, the future, and the idea of Europe. Loftsdóttir’s various research projects have been conducted in Iceland, Niger, Belgium, Italy, and Spain.  Her book Faces on Display (in Icelandic) (2023) was nominated for Fjöruverðlaunin and for Hagþenkir award as well as receiving the Booksellers award in 2023. 

Her publications include Creating Europe from the Margins. Mobilities and Racism in Postcolonial Europe (co-edited, Routledge, 2023); We are all African Here: Race, Mobilities and West Africans in Europe (monograph, Berghahn, 2021); Exceptionalism (co-authored, Routledge, 2021). Loftsdóttir received recognition and an award from the University of Iceland for outstanding research in 2014. Loftsdóttir has held several museum exhibitions in connection with her research.

Zoom link: 

https://anu.zoom.us/j/82431454032?pwd=owA39nWqTYm2TGOcC0sWa9bEDVangD.1

In person: H.C Coombs Building, H.C Coombs Building, Seminar Room C, Ground floor (near Coombs Lecture theatre)