(Re)framing national discourse: an analysing perspective of the role of one object in several (dis)plays

Abstract

Exhibitions, as frames for displayed objects, mediate and talk about the past as if it had just happened. Stories are being told through arrangement and physical categorization of museum materials, which were collected in order to tell something about past times. One object, a Tallerken (a plate) has been classified, formed and placed in the two exhibitions Gamle Norkse Varer (1937) and Historiske reiser i dannede hjem (2009) at Norsk Folkemuseum, Oslo, Norway, through different national discourses and mediating different national identities. By using comparative discourse analyse of the two exhibitions’ spatial and contextual formation, this thesis investigates the different national rhetoric the Tallerken has been contextualised in through different periods. In the exhibition Gamle Norskee Varer the Tallerken was to be experienced as an aesthetic object, representing itself as something purely Norwegian. In Historiske reiser i dannede hjem on the other hand, the object plays the role as a supporting actor in a bigger contextualising narrative, and symbolises a more fluid interpretation of Norwegian culture. The thesis also deliberates theoretical discussions that could be adapted when creating alternative contextualisation of history and national identity concerning the Tallerken. The imagined community, and the national framing of cultural history objects, might be reinterpreted and re-defined in order to open up the understanding of what used to be interpreted as a national symbol, but actually might be of a more multi-­cultural origin.