Fred Andersson is docent/adjunct professor in art history and visual communication at Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. He received his PhD in art history at Lund University in Sweden in 2007. In his research and teaching, Andersson focuses on semiotics as a methodological tool in studies of visual communication. After his doctoral thesis about the Swedish artist Elis Eriksson, published in Swedish as Elis Eriksson: Ting och tecken, Andersson has created and coordinated a Visual Studies program at Åbo Akademi University and started documentation projects about Nordic cultural journalism and the visual culture of the Nordic labor movement.