Dr Vibe Nielsen

Vibe Nielsen is a social anthropologist / cultural historian working on issues related to the decolonisation of museums, botanical gardens and public places. She holds a PhD in Anthropology (2019), an MA in Modern Culture (2015), an MA in Museum Studies (2012) and a BA in European Ethnology (2010) and was recently elected Member of the Young Academy at the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.

As a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek and the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Vibe Nielsen leads the three-year research project Passion or Politics? The Art Collection of Carl Jacobsen in a Socio-Economic and Cultural Political Context 1878-1914. The research project, which is funded by the Ny Carlsberg Foundation, examines the international influences and cultural political agendas that motivated the establishment of the collections of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. As part of the research project, she o-organises the international conference Collecting and Classifying: How Museums of the Late-Nineteenth Century Shaped the Modern World held at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.

Vibe Nielsen has been affiliated with the University of Oxford since 2021. She is currently affiliated with the University as a Research Fellow at Linacre College, an Associate Researcher at the Pitt Rivers Museum and an Academic Visitor at the Department of the History of Art. In Trinity Term 2025, she co-organised the prestigious Linacre Lecture Series, Communicating Culture: New Horizons for Museums, delving into the dynamics of cultural communication and exploring the unprecedented challenges and opportunities facing art, archaeology and anthropology in a rapidly changing world. She has been a Graduate Student Advisor at Linacre College since 2021, the President of the Music Society since 2022 and the organiser of numerous seminars, events and museum tours for the interdisciplinary Linacre community. In appreciation of her active contribution to the Music Society at Linacre College, she was awarded the Reid Music Prize in 2023.

The findings of her research are published in English, French and Danish, in academic, peer-reviewed journals and anthologies for academic and broader audiences alike. In 2023, she co-edited and contributed to the Routledge anthology Global Art in Local Art Worlds: Changing Hierarchies of Value (Salemink, Corrêa, Sejrup and Nielsen 2023), which is available to download Open Access. The anthology, which includes her chapter Ambivalent Art at the Tip of a Continent: The Zeitz MOCAA and its quest for global recognition (Nielsen 2023) on the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, has been applauded for its ‘deeply researched case studies with reflections by some of the most eminent ethnographers and theorists working today’ (Thomas 2023). 

Other highlights from her long list of publications include her single-authored peer-reviewed journal articles focusing on the colonial legacies of botanical gardens in Oxford, London and Los Angeles: 'Public Presentations of Plants: Colonial Legacies and Indigenous Perspectives in the Botanical Gardens of The Huntington' (Nielsen 2025) and 'The Colonial Roots of Botany - Legacies of Empire in the Botanic Gardens of Oxford and Kew' (Nielsen 2023), as well as her single-authored peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters focusing on the challenges associated with decolonising curatorial practices in art galleries and public spaces in South Africa and Denmark: Diversifying Public Commemorations in Cape Town and Copenhagen (Nielsen 2023), How to Practice Decoloniality in Museums: A review of Practicing Decoloniality in Museums – A Guide with Global Examples by Csilla E. Ariese and Magdalena Wróblewska (Nielsen 2022) and In the Absence of Rhodes - Decolonizing South African Universities (Nielsen 2021).

In recognition of Vibe Nielsen’s substantial contributions to the field of museum studies, she has been invited to act as reviewer of the Journal of the History of Collections, published by the Oxford University Press and Aarhus University Press, whom she collaborates with for the publication of her upcoming monographPalms and Prestige: Reproducing the Tropics in the Glasshouses of Copenhagen (Nielsen forthcoming). She is furthermore regularly invited to communicate her research in newspapers, online magazines, radio programmes and podcasts, as well as in guest lectures and public talks in Denmark, the United Kingdom and France.

Further information including upcoming talks and media contributions can be found here