Since the turn of the millennium, Scandinavian crafts and design have been the subject of debate, repositioning their changed contemporary identity within international cultural practice. The documentation and evaluation of recent histories of practice have been central to this project and in 2002 a new book, documentary film and exhibition for the first time aimed to survey 50 years of ceramics in Bergen, Norway, one of Scandinavia's key creative centres. I was invited to write the keynote essay for the book, and as the sole contributor from outside Scandinavia, to give a critical analysis of ceramic practice over the past fifty years, placing contemporary work from Norway in an international framework. Primary research centred on a study visit in Norway to museum and private collections, ceramicists' studios, galleries, the art school and archives, as well as secondary research in the UK, to establish points of convergence in Norwegian and non-Norwegian practice and themes of difference. National identity, questions of production and mediation, relationship to fine art and product design, the development from domestic studio pottery antipathetic to industry to the autonomous abstract modernist vessel relating to fine art, and the postmodern relativity of mixed-media large scale installations and post-industrial vernacular framings were all explored. My overarching commentary was accompanied by analysis of work from Norway, Japan, Australia, the US, UK and Europe, which I researched and selected as indicative exemplars of developments in practice. This project was funded by the Norwegian Cultural Council and Ministry for Foreign Affairs; eight other public funding bodies additionally supported the project, which included the film on Bergen ceramics pioneers in which I participated (Brennpunkt Bergen - Keramik & Kjaerliek, Video Produksjon Bergen AS shown on national television) and a symposium at which I gave a paper. Reviewed in Kunsthandverk, winter 2003.