Pauw Vos MA

PhD candidate

Cohort/Start PhD: 2025-2026

Narratives of the Nest: Early Dutch Bird Photography and the Visual Construction of Conservation (1890–1940)

Maastricht University, Faculty of Arts and Social Science (FASoS), chair group History

Supervisors: Prof. Raf De Bont and Dr. Miriam Meissner

Duration: 2025-2029

Since the late 19th century, photography has been a crucial component of bird conservation in the Netherlands. Pioneering photographers, such as Adolphe Burdet, Paul Louis Steenhuis and Richard Tepe, photographed bird species and their environments to advocate for their protection. In doing so, they contributed greatly to the establishment of early nature conservation groups and helped popularise contemporary scientific ideas about birds. Photos of nesting terns, for instance, helped protect the Naardermeer by illustrating its vulnerability and intricate ecosystem to a broader audience. More than other animals, birds were thought to represent a nature with which a harmonious relationship could be formed. This project will investigate how early Dutch bird photography (1890-1940) visually constructed specific ideas of birds and their environments, and how these visual narratives influenced Dutch conservation practices.

The research will do so by utilizing the underexplored nature photography collection of the Nederlands Fotomuseum and contextualise this with archival material from the Heimans en Thijsse Stichting. Using close visual analysis and archival research, I will trace how early photographs were composed, circulated and perceived in the early 20th century. By utilising an approach that draws on media studies, ecocriticism, environmental history, and critical animal studies, I will reveal how these images served not only to (scientifically) document specific bird species but acted as a strong mediating force which shaped conservation narratives. Considering the increasingly fraught and mediated nature of current human-bird encounters investigating this visual history provides necessary insight into our current engagements with nature.