Professor Söderlind has most recently worked on an inquiry for Uppsala University, and prior to that at the National Museum and Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde, where she was director for nine years. Solfrid Söderlind is Lund University’s first externally recruited dean to have broad academic experience. She gained her PhD from Linköping, did a postdoctoral fellowship in Copenhagen, became a reader at Åbo Akademi and a Professor of Art History in Uppsala, where she worked for many years.
Now she has settled in Lund, but is glad that her faculty is based in Malmö.
“There is a richer arts scene there with more customers for our programmes and courses”, she says.
It took Solfrid Söderlind nine years to bring about the major extension and renovation of the National Museum that has just started, closing large parts of the museum. She doesn’t want to wait as long to effect the removal of the Academy of Music to central Malmö, and the Concert Hall, which is moving out to Västra hamnen, is one interesting possibility. The location of the Concert Hall, a couple of minutes from the Art Academy on Bergsgatan and equally close to the Theatre Academy on Föreningsgatan, has its advantages, according to Solfrid Söderlind.
“We really need the campuses closer together. We need more meeting places because it is in informal meetings that new things happen.”
The Inter Arts Centre is a platform for interdisciplinary projects, and is also part of the Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts. The intention is for projects at the centre to extend all the way to Lund and Solfrid Söderlind explains that there are plans for a collaboration with the Humanities Laboratory at the Centre for Languages and Literature.
Håkan Lundström from the Academy of Music resigned as dean at the start of the year. Solfrid Söderlind is Professor of Museology specialising in Visual Arts at the Art Academy. She is looking forward to having time for her job as professor, but so far has only been able to focus on the role of dean. She describes herself as a visionary, a strategist and a doer.
“There are not many people who have that combination”, she says. She believes that was why she got the job.
In other words, she can both talk the talk and walk the walk. And suddenly her degree in Church Music is a useful qualification.
“Not that I have anywhere near the expertise they have at the Academy of Music, but I do at least have a basic understanding.”
Drama, on the other hand, is something she hasn’t tried, but she would like to see the Theatre Academy make use of Malmö’s multicultural make-up and all the languages spoken there that enrich modern Swedish.
With her background in the world of public museums, Solfrid Söderlind is used to a certain amount of organisational sluggishness, and she has also encountered this at Lund University.
“While there is a lack of formality and routines, there is also extensive bureaucracy”, she says.
Text & Photo: Maria Lindh
