The film ”A Soul of a City” is based on my film project Kiruna – Rymdvägen (Kiruna – Space road).
The film ”A Soul of A City” is about the big industry and the natural organic movement of all the living to death; the people in the city and the ore mine that has created the soul of the city.
A film by: Liselotte Wajstedt
Music: Maja Ratkje
Animation: Maja Fjällbäck
The whole film is exhibited at Bildmuseet in Umeå until the end of October 2012.
Monday, September 24. 2012
A Soul of a City
Tuesday, July 10. 2012
Exhibition Opening
For all those who could not be at the opening of Kirunatopia’s first exhibition as well as for those who were there: Check out some photos of this lovely midsummer evening at the new Bildmuseet in Umeå. See also the exhibition’s press review and our ten short interviews with the artists. Have a nice summer!
Wednesday, June 20. 2012
Exhibition Countdown – Short Interview No. 10: Florian Zeyfang
Finally! Today Kirunatopia / In the Shadow of the Future opens as the project’s first exhibition! Our countdown ends with the last out of ten short interviews that were conducted by the curators Kim Einarsson and Brita Täljedal and published in the run-up to the exhibition: German artist Florian Zeyfang talks about the sculpture Measure Point as a marker of a change in Kiruna’s history and his video Ghost Train - a film essay on Kiruna, the mine and the landscape.
The exhibition runs until October 28 at Bildmuseet in Umeå - see you there!
A recurrent theme in your artistic practice is how transformations in technology and the development of society relate to art and other cultural expressions. Your work for Kirunatopia consists of a video and a large sculpture, a wall construction made from sawn timber in the form of a cross. Does this sculpture resemble anything that you have seen in Kiruna or anywhere else?
The idea for Measure Point grew out of a photograph I found in the archives of Borg Mesch, the photographer who documented the history of Kiruna, including portraits of the mine’s workers and directors. Mesch captured the building of the railway from Narvik to Kiruna - the Iron Ore Line - through all its stages and photographed the landscape and mountains around Kiruna in a similar manner. The huge wooden cross that he captured in one image is the starting point for balloon theodolite measurement. The balloons started from behind those walls, safe from wind turbulence.
Measure Point, as a sculpture, stands for a focus point, for the history of Kiruna, for the moment when the existence of the iron ore mine came out into the open and the land was consequently measured to become part of the international ore mining industry. Measure Point also marks the moment when what we know as science took over from other uses of the land, i.e. that of the Sami and their reindeers. It is a marker of a change in history.
Your video Ghost Train was shot during a visit to Kiruna in November 2011. You have documented the surroundings of the city with the railway, the railway station building, and the long trains of iron ore cars at the centre. Could you please comment on this choice of motif?
Ghost Train collects thoughts around the history of Kiruna, the mine, and the landscape. The situation can trigger a certain kind of fascination, haunted by the history of the land and the huge impact that mining and transport have had on the natural environment and people’s interaction with it. In the video, images of the actual trains from the Iron Ore Line between Kiruna and Narvik, together with images taken from Borg Mesch’s photographic archives, are combined to create a film essay that elaborates on associations and ideas around Kiruna, the mine, and the landscape.
The North has been a surface for all kinds of projections. The history of the activities in and around the mine, and the invention of Kiruna through the mine, has a sort of gold rush appeal to it. The creation of the eponymous ghost train in the film enabled me to mix images, thoughts, and speculations that react with the myriad other projections onto this area.
See all Interviews >>
The exhibition runs until October 28 at Bildmuseet in Umeå - see you there!
A recurrent theme in your artistic practice is how transformations in technology and the development of society relate to art and other cultural expressions. Your work for Kirunatopia consists of a video and a large sculpture, a wall construction made from sawn timber in the form of a cross. Does this sculpture resemble anything that you have seen in Kiruna or anywhere else?
The idea for Measure Point grew out of a photograph I found in the archives of Borg Mesch, the photographer who documented the history of Kiruna, including portraits of the mine’s workers and directors. Mesch captured the building of the railway from Narvik to Kiruna - the Iron Ore Line - through all its stages and photographed the landscape and mountains around Kiruna in a similar manner. The huge wooden cross that he captured in one image is the starting point for balloon theodolite measurement. The balloons started from behind those walls, safe from wind turbulence.
Measure Point, as a sculpture, stands for a focus point, for the history of Kiruna, for the moment when the existence of the iron ore mine came out into the open and the land was consequently measured to become part of the international ore mining industry. Measure Point also marks the moment when what we know as science took over from other uses of the land, i.e. that of the Sami and their reindeers. It is a marker of a change in history.
Your video Ghost Train was shot during a visit to Kiruna in November 2011. You have documented the surroundings of the city with the railway, the railway station building, and the long trains of iron ore cars at the centre. Could you please comment on this choice of motif?
Ghost Train collects thoughts around the history of Kiruna, the mine, and the landscape. The situation can trigger a certain kind of fascination, haunted by the history of the land and the huge impact that mining and transport have had on the natural environment and people’s interaction with it. In the video, images of the actual trains from the Iron Ore Line between Kiruna and Narvik, together with images taken from Borg Mesch’s photographic archives, are combined to create a film essay that elaborates on associations and ideas around Kiruna, the mine, and the landscape.
The North has been a surface for all kinds of projections. The history of the activities in and around the mine, and the invention of Kiruna through the mine, has a sort of gold rush appeal to it. The creation of the eponymous ghost train in the film enabled me to mix images, thoughts, and speculations that react with the myriad other projections onto this area.
See all Interviews >>
Monday, June 18. 2012
Exhibition Countdown – Short Interview No. 9: Ingela Johansson
2 days left! The day after tomorrow Kirunatopia’s first exhibition opens up at Bildmuseet. Here is the second to last interview of our countdown: Ingela Johansson about her research and presentation of an art collection that has its roots in the big mining strike at Svappavaara, Malmberget and Kiruna in 1969/1970, the act of donating art and the potential of striking miners to change society as well as a gigantic amount of archive material.
Something that permeates many of your works is your interest in how art is collected and mediated, and the ideologies involved. In this project you have chosen to show the art collection that was established in connection with the big mining strike at Svappavaara, Malmberget and Kiruna in 1969-1970. What specifically about this strike and collection interested you?
The strike helped bring to the fore the power relationships in working life and the forces behind society’s development. One wanted to have increased influence over work and the organisation of work. The critique of ideology was a strong current in the intellectual world and the city political machine’s influence over cultural practice was a complicated one. There was a massive support fund raised for the strikers among cultural practitioners around the country. I find the act of donating art in solidarity with the strikers very interesting: to give away something as a gift with the idea that the striking miners had the potential to change society. The collection tells a history about the fact that artists stood up for the miners in a labour market conflict that shook the Swedish Model significantly. It is also a great resource as a document of its time that allows one to further analyse larger structures, such as the power relationship between the individual and the state during a time of social flux, as the ‘60-70s is commonly characterised. Precisely this perspective felt relevant and important to address in relation to the artworks that are represented in the collection, which has found a home at Gällivare Museum, a hundred kilometres south of Kiruna. The collection consists of sculptures, paintings, drawings and graphic art: works that were donated by artists to the miners to supplement their strike fund through various auctions and collections.
In another parallel work-in-progress I examine the zeitgeist of the ‘60s and ‘70s and other cultural productions that were connected to the strike, which was a part of a larger widespread current of activism that occurred around the strike. On the whole, this is an almost impossible task because I was not involved myself during this period, but I’ve studied it a great deal and can contribute by showing the collection in an art context, and convey a symbolic image of the strike in dialogue with other collections. What is especially interesting with the miner strike’s art collection is that this historical representation is broad: that it has roots in the people and worker’s movement, but also in an art scene with many prominent modernists represented. It is an important document of its time.
Your work builds on several years work on this strike and the cultural productions that arose as acts of solidarity with the striking workers. You have a gigantic amount of archival material. Can you say something about your presentation of the project in Umeå? How have you made your selection and what feels important for you to show in this context?
It is important to see the collection as a collection with its own body and its own fate. It represents the strike committee.
I have been having the opportunity to collaborate with Gällivare Museum to research on the collection for a larger ongoing text work as a parallel activity to actually loaning it and presenting it physically to an audience in a museum. Considering the historical context of the collection, that it belongs to the strike committee, I have started from the minutes of the committee meetings where the collection is mentioned. The collection was not sold after the strike, but the committee did wonder what they should do with it. They wanted to initiate a travelling exhibition, where the librarian Adolf Henriksson in Malmberget would be responsible, and the art would be shown together with other documents from the collection, but this was not done for some unknown reason. I wanted to pursue the idea, but have made a compromise before the exhibition at Bildmuseet. Gällivare Museum has gotten the work in as good as condition as possible since the collection is not complete. It is important to not make a selection, but to initially follow the inventory list from the committee and the strike committee’s protocol as much as possible. The collection has not been shown outside of Norrbotten before. Bildmuseet is today the largest art museum in northern Sweden and the opportunity was given to showcase the majority of the collection under the umbrella of Kirunatopia.
For the opening you have arranged a staging of the speech that the author Sara Lidman gave to the miners in connection with the strike. Can you say something briefly about the connection between the speech and the strike collection?
Sara Lidman was a key figure during the strike. She rose to prominence as a reporter for TV 2 and gave an impromptu speech at the general meeting in Kiruna Sporthall on 11 December 1969. Sara knew the miners from earlier. In 1968 she wrote the texts for a book called Gruva (Mine), about the human relationships that were formed in the LKAB mine, accompanied by Odd Uhrbom’s photography. It was an exposé - portraits in words and images, anonymous stories of the evils and abuses of the state-owned enterprise - and a book that would come to play a major role in the strike’s development and defining the dispute. For example, it came out that the finance minister Gunnar Sträng disliked the book’s influence and sought to discredit it.
At the strike meeting in Kiruna Sporthall, Sara decided to donate 10,000:- of the honorarium she received for the second edition of Gruva as the nucleus of a strike fund. It was a telling gesture that encouraged other cultural workers to follow suite. The staging of Sara Lindman’s speech therefore gives the collection a background context in the nationwide fundraising effort and explains directly how the strike fund came into being. Sara also had a strong rhetorical voice that influenced public opinion and she spoke passionately at demonstrations to get people to support the strikers. Sara was also very good friends with Berta Hansson and Siri Derkert, two of the artists represented in the collection. Berta directly initiated an art auction at Galleri Heland in Stockholm.
Coming up: Florian Zeyfang about his sculpture Measure Point as a marker of a change in Kiruna’s history and his video Ghost Train…
See all Interviews >>
Dokumentation: Baksidor strejkkonstsamlingen
Something that permeates many of your works is your interest in how art is collected and mediated, and the ideologies involved. In this project you have chosen to show the art collection that was established in connection with the big mining strike at Svappavaara, Malmberget and Kiruna in 1969-1970. What specifically about this strike and collection interested you?
The strike helped bring to the fore the power relationships in working life and the forces behind society’s development. One wanted to have increased influence over work and the organisation of work. The critique of ideology was a strong current in the intellectual world and the city political machine’s influence over cultural practice was a complicated one. There was a massive support fund raised for the strikers among cultural practitioners around the country. I find the act of donating art in solidarity with the strikers very interesting: to give away something as a gift with the idea that the striking miners had the potential to change society. The collection tells a history about the fact that artists stood up for the miners in a labour market conflict that shook the Swedish Model significantly. It is also a great resource as a document of its time that allows one to further analyse larger structures, such as the power relationship between the individual and the state during a time of social flux, as the ‘60-70s is commonly characterised. Precisely this perspective felt relevant and important to address in relation to the artworks that are represented in the collection, which has found a home at Gällivare Museum, a hundred kilometres south of Kiruna. The collection consists of sculptures, paintings, drawings and graphic art: works that were donated by artists to the miners to supplement their strike fund through various auctions and collections.
In another parallel work-in-progress I examine the zeitgeist of the ‘60s and ‘70s and other cultural productions that were connected to the strike, which was a part of a larger widespread current of activism that occurred around the strike. On the whole, this is an almost impossible task because I was not involved myself during this period, but I’ve studied it a great deal and can contribute by showing the collection in an art context, and convey a symbolic image of the strike in dialogue with other collections. What is especially interesting with the miner strike’s art collection is that this historical representation is broad: that it has roots in the people and worker’s movement, but also in an art scene with many prominent modernists represented. It is an important document of its time.
Dokumentation: Baksidor strejkkonstsamlingen
Your work builds on several years work on this strike and the cultural productions that arose as acts of solidarity with the striking workers. You have a gigantic amount of archival material. Can you say something about your presentation of the project in Umeå? How have you made your selection and what feels important for you to show in this context?
It is important to see the collection as a collection with its own body and its own fate. It represents the strike committee.
I have been having the opportunity to collaborate with Gällivare Museum to research on the collection for a larger ongoing text work as a parallel activity to actually loaning it and presenting it physically to an audience in a museum. Considering the historical context of the collection, that it belongs to the strike committee, I have started from the minutes of the committee meetings where the collection is mentioned. The collection was not sold after the strike, but the committee did wonder what they should do with it. They wanted to initiate a travelling exhibition, where the librarian Adolf Henriksson in Malmberget would be responsible, and the art would be shown together with other documents from the collection, but this was not done for some unknown reason. I wanted to pursue the idea, but have made a compromise before the exhibition at Bildmuseet. Gällivare Museum has gotten the work in as good as condition as possible since the collection is not complete. It is important to not make a selection, but to initially follow the inventory list from the committee and the strike committee’s protocol as much as possible. The collection has not been shown outside of Norrbotten before. Bildmuseet is today the largest art museum in northern Sweden and the opportunity was given to showcase the majority of the collection under the umbrella of Kirunatopia.
Adolf Henriksson och Sara Lidman på Malmbergets Bibliotek 1969. Sara Lidman läser ur Gruva.
For the opening you have arranged a staging of the speech that the author Sara Lidman gave to the miners in connection with the strike. Can you say something briefly about the connection between the speech and the strike collection?
Sara Lidman was a key figure during the strike. She rose to prominence as a reporter for TV 2 and gave an impromptu speech at the general meeting in Kiruna Sporthall on 11 December 1969. Sara knew the miners from earlier. In 1968 she wrote the texts for a book called Gruva (Mine), about the human relationships that were formed in the LKAB mine, accompanied by Odd Uhrbom’s photography. It was an exposé - portraits in words and images, anonymous stories of the evils and abuses of the state-owned enterprise - and a book that would come to play a major role in the strike’s development and defining the dispute. For example, it came out that the finance minister Gunnar Sträng disliked the book’s influence and sought to discredit it.
At the strike meeting in Kiruna Sporthall, Sara decided to donate 10,000:- of the honorarium she received for the second edition of Gruva as the nucleus of a strike fund. It was a telling gesture that encouraged other cultural workers to follow suite. The staging of Sara Lindman’s speech therefore gives the collection a background context in the nationwide fundraising effort and explains directly how the strike fund came into being. Sara also had a strong rhetorical voice that influenced public opinion and she spoke passionately at demonstrations to get people to support the strikers. Sara was also very good friends with Berta Hansson and Siri Derkert, two of the artists represented in the collection. Berta directly initiated an art auction at Galleri Heland in Stockholm.
Coming up: Florian Zeyfang about his sculpture Measure Point as a marker of a change in Kiruna’s history and his video Ghost Train…
See all Interviews >>
Saturday, June 16. 2012
Exhibition Countdown – Short Interview No. 8: Lara Almarcegui
4 days left until the exhibition opening! Enjoy reading this weekend’s interview with Spanish artist Lara Almarcegui about her interest in neglected sites in general and specifically in Toullavaara – the empty territory where Kiruna will be moved.
You have chosen to dig into the future history of Kiruna by focusing on Toullavaara, the currently empty site where Kiruna will be moved. What kind of history have you been interested in telling and why?
I didn’t know what I would find, but I thought that Toullavaara should have a reality different than the one being discussed now, and I wanted to try to present it. This reality had to do with its past and physical reality in terms of vegetation and territory. Most of it will cease to exist if the land is developed and that makes it interesting to me. I am always shocked when I consider that a certain place is scheduled to disappear from the face of the earth.
Many of your projects explore neglected or overlooked sites. Why do you think that you are drawn to these kinds of environments?
When I am in contemporary European cities, all the space that surrounds me has been designed, constructed and fixed. All the places correspond with an efficient function and there is nothing left for the inhabitants of the city. It feels as though the only role of the city’s inhabitants is to fill up the structures construct by architects while, for example, shopping. For me it is very necessary to look for spaces that escape this overdesign. Those are the wastelands: the open grounds that do not correspond to a programme and are open to different possibilities.
For this presentation you have chosen to make a folder with pictures and maps of the area. How do you imagine this project continuing?
First, I still do not know if Kiruna will be rebuilt on this land in the end. Since they have changed the plan so often in the past, it can happen again that they decide to move the city somewhere else, or that the mine grows at a slower rate and there is no need to move the city… The work departs from a hypothetical reality and therefore its future is very vague. For me this is new: instead of working with wastelands that will be developed in one or two years time as I have before, now I am trying to go far into the future, long before construction begins. For example, I just did research on the wastelands involved in Rome’s application for the 2020 Olympics: if Rome’s application is not successful, there is no development. The risk is to end with nothing, but I find this way of working more exciting in politics and action since it can also be more effective.
Coming up: Ingela Johansson about her research and presentation of an art collection that has its roots in the big mining strike at Svappavaara, Malmberget and Kiruna in 1969/1970…
See all Interviews >>
You have chosen to dig into the future history of Kiruna by focusing on Toullavaara, the currently empty site where Kiruna will be moved. What kind of history have you been interested in telling and why?
I didn’t know what I would find, but I thought that Toullavaara should have a reality different than the one being discussed now, and I wanted to try to present it. This reality had to do with its past and physical reality in terms of vegetation and territory. Most of it will cease to exist if the land is developed and that makes it interesting to me. I am always shocked when I consider that a certain place is scheduled to disappear from the face of the earth.
Many of your projects explore neglected or overlooked sites. Why do you think that you are drawn to these kinds of environments?
When I am in contemporary European cities, all the space that surrounds me has been designed, constructed and fixed. All the places correspond with an efficient function and there is nothing left for the inhabitants of the city. It feels as though the only role of the city’s inhabitants is to fill up the structures construct by architects while, for example, shopping. For me it is very necessary to look for spaces that escape this overdesign. Those are the wastelands: the open grounds that do not correspond to a programme and are open to different possibilities.
For this presentation you have chosen to make a folder with pictures and maps of the area. How do you imagine this project continuing?
First, I still do not know if Kiruna will be rebuilt on this land in the end. Since they have changed the plan so often in the past, it can happen again that they decide to move the city somewhere else, or that the mine grows at a slower rate and there is no need to move the city… The work departs from a hypothetical reality and therefore its future is very vague. For me this is new: instead of working with wastelands that will be developed in one or two years time as I have before, now I am trying to go far into the future, long before construction begins. For example, I just did research on the wastelands involved in Rome’s application for the 2020 Olympics: if Rome’s application is not successful, there is no development. The risk is to end with nothing, but I find this way of working more exciting in politics and action since it can also be more effective.
Coming up: Ingela Johansson about her research and presentation of an art collection that has its roots in the big mining strike at Svappavaara, Malmberget and Kiruna in 1969/1970…
See all Interviews >>
Wednesday, June 13. 2012
Exhibition Countdown – Short Interview No. 7: Lina Issa
Only 7 days left! A week from today the exhibition Kirunatopia / In the Shadow of the Future will be opened at Bildmuseet in Umeå! In the meantime enjoy reading our next interview with Lina Issa about her happening in Kiruna involving 250 inhabitants and its effects on the memory of the town.
Your works quite often take the form of social and participatory events. The two videos in Kirunatopia were shot during a happening you arranged in May 2011. You gathered hundreds of people living in Kiruna to walk along the first estimated ‘crack line’ of the city. What is the background of this work?
The idea started after speaking to a number of people in Kiruna and realising that many of them seemed to have grown indifferent and numb to their own situation and future, and that of the city. They speak of the crack(s) that the mine will create in the city as something abstract and far from where they are or will be when it happens. On the other hand, in all of their reports the city planners and LKAB engineers have visualised a couple of red lines marking the locations of the cracks and estimate them arising in the near future and at a short distance from the population.
Besides that, among all the financial and practical discussions about moving the city, there has been very little talk about the social and emotional consequences of the move. So I asked myself: What would it mean to physically confront the crack? What does the crack symbolise? Will it cause a fissure in the memory and history of the town? Will it divide people? Will it empower some and marginalise or exclude others?
Thinking of Tug of War, I imagined the people shifting between an individual and a collective body, making this ‘abstract’ image of the crack physically palpable in their participation in the happening. I imagined them standing there, looking at it (a latent presence/absence) and being an active, conscious and physical part of the changing ‘topography’ of their town and activating its memory.
In one of your earlier projects, What if, if I take your place?, you ‘replaced’ participants in one or more situations in their lives. You lived their life for periods ranging from an hour to a couple of days. Displacement and creating situations for transgression of barriers seems to be a reoccurring theme in your work.
Questions of replacement - What if I take your place? Can I feel what you feel? - do indeed recur throughout my practice. Kirunatopia placed me in Kiruna as an artist and as a foreigner. It is a city of multiple identities and realities, a city experiencing a form of dislocation and displacement in not only its geography, but also in its history, memory and identity. So in this project I again challenged my position as a migrant, and the possibility of displacing myself and my set of references, whether they be cultural, political, social, geographical or physical. I looked for a form where displacement could be experienced as generative, instead of painful and degenerative, and where the displaced can shape the narratives of their displacement as subjects rather than objects.
My project has taken the form of a social event and a happening, a ‘tug of war’. I literally placed the 250 participants of the happening and myself in a situation where relations, memories, associations and reflections could unfold. I tried to create conditions for imagined and real experiences and narratives to emerge and be shared.
The happening in Kiruna can almost be seen as an orchestration of a collective memory, a monument for and by the community. What do you hope the participants will carry with them from that day?
My 'Kirunatopia' here was to find a form where a meaningful, open and touching encounter could happen between me, the people of Kiruna, the place and an artistic vision/contribution. The participants of the happening experienced it as a productive and inspiring form to deal with their situation and address its social and emotional aspects when there was little room for that in the public debate. They experienced it as a positive and playful form of dealing with their confusion and anxiety towards the consequences of dislocation.
The happening contextualises itself within the complex tensions and narratives of the past, present and future of the city. It takes place on a symbolic geographical spot where no one will be able to stand in the future, and where no physical trace will be seen of the people’s past presence. The memory of the place will only be embodied in those who have lived there, and I hope that the happening has offered the inhabitants of Kiruna a chance to reflect on the process of separation from a part of themselves, and that it has activated the power of embodied and collective memory.
Coming up: Lara Almarcegui about Toullavaara – the empty territory where Kiruna will be moved…
See all Interviews >>
Your works quite often take the form of social and participatory events. The two videos in Kirunatopia were shot during a happening you arranged in May 2011. You gathered hundreds of people living in Kiruna to walk along the first estimated ‘crack line’ of the city. What is the background of this work?
The idea started after speaking to a number of people in Kiruna and realising that many of them seemed to have grown indifferent and numb to their own situation and future, and that of the city. They speak of the crack(s) that the mine will create in the city as something abstract and far from where they are or will be when it happens. On the other hand, in all of their reports the city planners and LKAB engineers have visualised a couple of red lines marking the locations of the cracks and estimate them arising in the near future and at a short distance from the population.
Besides that, among all the financial and practical discussions about moving the city, there has been very little talk about the social and emotional consequences of the move. So I asked myself: What would it mean to physically confront the crack? What does the crack symbolise? Will it cause a fissure in the memory and history of the town? Will it divide people? Will it empower some and marginalise or exclude others?
Thinking of Tug of War, I imagined the people shifting between an individual and a collective body, making this ‘abstract’ image of the crack physically palpable in their participation in the happening. I imagined them standing there, looking at it (a latent presence/absence) and being an active, conscious and physical part of the changing ‘topography’ of their town and activating its memory.
In one of your earlier projects, What if, if I take your place?, you ‘replaced’ participants in one or more situations in their lives. You lived their life for periods ranging from an hour to a couple of days. Displacement and creating situations for transgression of barriers seems to be a reoccurring theme in your work.
Questions of replacement - What if I take your place? Can I feel what you feel? - do indeed recur throughout my practice. Kirunatopia placed me in Kiruna as an artist and as a foreigner. It is a city of multiple identities and realities, a city experiencing a form of dislocation and displacement in not only its geography, but also in its history, memory and identity. So in this project I again challenged my position as a migrant, and the possibility of displacing myself and my set of references, whether they be cultural, political, social, geographical or physical. I looked for a form where displacement could be experienced as generative, instead of painful and degenerative, and where the displaced can shape the narratives of their displacement as subjects rather than objects.
My project has taken the form of a social event and a happening, a ‘tug of war’. I literally placed the 250 participants of the happening and myself in a situation where relations, memories, associations and reflections could unfold. I tried to create conditions for imagined and real experiences and narratives to emerge and be shared.
The happening in Kiruna can almost be seen as an orchestration of a collective memory, a monument for and by the community. What do you hope the participants will carry with them from that day?
My 'Kirunatopia' here was to find a form where a meaningful, open and touching encounter could happen between me, the people of Kiruna, the place and an artistic vision/contribution. The participants of the happening experienced it as a productive and inspiring form to deal with their situation and address its social and emotional aspects when there was little room for that in the public debate. They experienced it as a positive and playful form of dealing with their confusion and anxiety towards the consequences of dislocation.
The happening contextualises itself within the complex tensions and narratives of the past, present and future of the city. It takes place on a symbolic geographical spot where no one will be able to stand in the future, and where no physical trace will be seen of the people’s past presence. The memory of the place will only be embodied in those who have lived there, and I hope that the happening has offered the inhabitants of Kiruna a chance to reflect on the process of separation from a part of themselves, and that it has activated the power of embodied and collective memory.
Coming up: Lara Almarcegui about Toullavaara – the empty territory where Kiruna will be moved…
See all Interviews >>
Monday, June 11. 2012
Exhibition Countdown – Short Interview No. 6: Agneta Andersson
9 days to go until the exhibition opens at Bildmuseet in Umeå! In our sixth interview Agneta Andersson reports what it is like being a tourist in your own town and why Kiruna, in her view, is a drawing.
You were raised in Kiruna and, unlike many of the other participants in this exhibition, you have had a long, intimate relationship with the city. What has been important for you in your investigation of Kiruna?
I had actually thought of doing a project about the blasts from the mine that woke me up every night. They seem as though they are coming closer and closer with every passing year and recently I’ve felt a strong sense of agitation and unease in my body. I’ve had nightmares at night about the city collapsing into an abyss. In this project I wanted to explore this influence that I have felt so strongly, yet have had difficulty defining.
I can imagine a visitor to Kiruna seeing a high-tech centre surrounded by a romantic landscape, and thinking of the city’s move as something exciting. I myself see a city in decay, a big expanding black hole. "Kirunatopia" gave me the possibility of being a tourist in my own town. It became an opportunity for me to describe my feelings and thoughts from my world within Kiruna, and put them in a larger context together with other artists. It’s about time, housing shortages, politics, model towns, our history, hope, jobs, equality, the future, consumption, greed and the belief in a better life – thoughts that started to fade together with all that is called solidarity.
You often work with sculpture, using materials like textiles, metal and glass. Within this project you’ve chosen to display drawings. Can you talk a little bit about your choice of material and technique? You told me earlier that it’s been a long time since you’ve made drawings.
Kiruna is a drawing, I think. Blackness and soot. I chose therefore to draw with coal. The darkness and the light are symbolic of Kiruna: a city with so many, and such large, contrasts. Space, the mine, the romanticism and the hard labour, the unspeakable, the pride, love and death, close yet somehow so far away – Kiruna is like one huge epic about humanity and industry.
Coming up: Lina Issa talks about the challenges of dis- and replacement plus how she, together with 250 inhabitants of Kiruna, physically confronted the crack-line caused by the mine…
See all Interviews >>
You were raised in Kiruna and, unlike many of the other participants in this exhibition, you have had a long, intimate relationship with the city. What has been important for you in your investigation of Kiruna?
I had actually thought of doing a project about the blasts from the mine that woke me up every night. They seem as though they are coming closer and closer with every passing year and recently I’ve felt a strong sense of agitation and unease in my body. I’ve had nightmares at night about the city collapsing into an abyss. In this project I wanted to explore this influence that I have felt so strongly, yet have had difficulty defining.
I can imagine a visitor to Kiruna seeing a high-tech centre surrounded by a romantic landscape, and thinking of the city’s move as something exciting. I myself see a city in decay, a big expanding black hole. "Kirunatopia" gave me the possibility of being a tourist in my own town. It became an opportunity for me to describe my feelings and thoughts from my world within Kiruna, and put them in a larger context together with other artists. It’s about time, housing shortages, politics, model towns, our history, hope, jobs, equality, the future, consumption, greed and the belief in a better life – thoughts that started to fade together with all that is called solidarity.
You often work with sculpture, using materials like textiles, metal and glass. Within this project you’ve chosen to display drawings. Can you talk a little bit about your choice of material and technique? You told me earlier that it’s been a long time since you’ve made drawings.
Kiruna is a drawing, I think. Blackness and soot. I chose therefore to draw with coal. The darkness and the light are symbolic of Kiruna: a city with so many, and such large, contrasts. Space, the mine, the romanticism and the hard labour, the unspeakable, the pride, love and death, close yet somehow so far away – Kiruna is like one huge epic about humanity and industry.
Coming up: Lina Issa talks about the challenges of dis- and replacement plus how she, together with 250 inhabitants of Kiruna, physically confronted the crack-line caused by the mine…
See all Interviews >>
Saturday, June 9. 2012
Exhibition Countdown – Short Interview No. 5: Dave Hullfish Bailey
11 days left until the exhibition opening! Today it is American artist Dave Hullfish Bailey who reveals some thoughts on his way of working with documentary and fictional material. Plus we get to know what the presentation of his Kirunatopia-project has to do with “remote learning” classrooms. Enjoy reading!
Your work often deals with the intersection of very different narratives and stories, and blends documentary material with fiction and speculation. Could you say something about your approach and research process for this project?
My research process started with our visit to Kiruna in December 2010. Beyond the many interesting histories and situations, the thing that struck me most was the particular cadence of time during those dark winter days. That sense of Kiruna existing in an altered temporality was much more palpable than its spatial marginality. My subsequent research focused on the multiple rhythms and time scales that are going on in Kiruna simultaneously: the imagined future of the planning projections; the reindeer-based peregrinations of the Sami herders; the speed of light and the unfathomable eons that underwrite the calculations of European Space Agency scientists; and the multiple labour shifts at the mine, punctuated by nightly explosions. Different kinds of speculation seem already embedded in each of these activities, and with it different relations to the regularity and modularity of time we have grown accustomed to under modernism in more temperate zones. LKAB does its best to project that kind of regularity, predictability and continuous agency into its operations, but, as the situation of the town makes clear, the present, let alone the future, remains a much more contingent proposition in Kiruna than elsewhere. Speculation and fiction - thought processes I have used to open critical distance to the status quo in other contexts - are here shifted by their unusually strong correlates in what we might call the 'projective tendencies' of Kiruna. That these are debased forms of knowledge within the modern technological worldview points to, I think, aspects of the deeper cultural conflict going on in Kiruna.
Your project will be presented as a slide show in an installation that is reminiscent of the classrooms at Umeå University in Kiruna where they normally host video conferences. You have also been thinking of continuing your project in Kiruna with workshops for teenagers in the city. Could you say something about how you play with pedagogical and participatory approaches in your work?
My typical work process starts from on-the-ground research, then follows up with more traditional book-, map- and archive-based kinds of study. So there is a dialectic between empirical and remote learning. I then recombine the myriad observations and information through experimental sense-making operations to generate some of the more speculative trajectories you mentioned above. But I return those ideas back to the social field, as a set of critical horizons attached to concrete interventions. I try to put them in a real feedback loop between the given and the possible, rather than let them simply detach and unfold on their own terms. (This may be where my method has a critical engagement with some of the methodologies attached to more utopian forms of planning.) Pedagogical and participatory elements are contexts for completing these kinds of circuits. First, they provide contexts for concretising some of the specific proposals that come out of my research - for taking it out of the purely speculative realm and letting the world 'talk back'. But more generally, and ultimately more importantly than any given proposal, they are critical sites for alternate kinds of learning. The 'remote learning' classrooms of Umeå University's Kiruna campus are interesting sites in that they privilege indirect learning of institutionally sanctioned knowledge. In working with teenagers in Kiruna, I'd want to place that model in conversation with more direct forms of generating knowledge and with less officially sanctioned kinds of thinking, especially concerning lived places and how we know them.
Coming up: Agneta Andersson, who grew up in Kiruna, about being a tourist in her own town…
See all Interviews >>
Your work often deals with the intersection of very different narratives and stories, and blends documentary material with fiction and speculation. Could you say something about your approach and research process for this project?
My research process started with our visit to Kiruna in December 2010. Beyond the many interesting histories and situations, the thing that struck me most was the particular cadence of time during those dark winter days. That sense of Kiruna existing in an altered temporality was much more palpable than its spatial marginality. My subsequent research focused on the multiple rhythms and time scales that are going on in Kiruna simultaneously: the imagined future of the planning projections; the reindeer-based peregrinations of the Sami herders; the speed of light and the unfathomable eons that underwrite the calculations of European Space Agency scientists; and the multiple labour shifts at the mine, punctuated by nightly explosions. Different kinds of speculation seem already embedded in each of these activities, and with it different relations to the regularity and modularity of time we have grown accustomed to under modernism in more temperate zones. LKAB does its best to project that kind of regularity, predictability and continuous agency into its operations, but, as the situation of the town makes clear, the present, let alone the future, remains a much more contingent proposition in Kiruna than elsewhere. Speculation and fiction - thought processes I have used to open critical distance to the status quo in other contexts - are here shifted by their unusually strong correlates in what we might call the 'projective tendencies' of Kiruna. That these are debased forms of knowledge within the modern technological worldview points to, I think, aspects of the deeper cultural conflict going on in Kiruna.
Your project will be presented as a slide show in an installation that is reminiscent of the classrooms at Umeå University in Kiruna where they normally host video conferences. You have also been thinking of continuing your project in Kiruna with workshops for teenagers in the city. Could you say something about how you play with pedagogical and participatory approaches in your work?
My typical work process starts from on-the-ground research, then follows up with more traditional book-, map- and archive-based kinds of study. So there is a dialectic between empirical and remote learning. I then recombine the myriad observations and information through experimental sense-making operations to generate some of the more speculative trajectories you mentioned above. But I return those ideas back to the social field, as a set of critical horizons attached to concrete interventions. I try to put them in a real feedback loop between the given and the possible, rather than let them simply detach and unfold on their own terms. (This may be where my method has a critical engagement with some of the methodologies attached to more utopian forms of planning.) Pedagogical and participatory elements are contexts for completing these kinds of circuits. First, they provide contexts for concretising some of the specific proposals that come out of my research - for taking it out of the purely speculative realm and letting the world 'talk back'. But more generally, and ultimately more importantly than any given proposal, they are critical sites for alternate kinds of learning. The 'remote learning' classrooms of Umeå University's Kiruna campus are interesting sites in that they privilege indirect learning of institutionally sanctioned knowledge. In working with teenagers in Kiruna, I'd want to place that model in conversation with more direct forms of generating knowledge and with less officially sanctioned kinds of thinking, especially concerning lived places and how we know them.
Coming up: Agneta Andersson, who grew up in Kiruna, about being a tourist in her own town…
See all Interviews >>
Thursday, June 7. 2012
Exhibition Countdown – Short Interview No. 4: Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen
13 days left until the opening of the exhibition! Interview of the day: The Norwegian artist duo Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen about their conversation with the oldest living miner of Kiruna and its connection with landscape and Sami music in their work.
Your work in the exhibition is a filmed interview with a retired miner from Kiruna, Bengt Jernelöf. He talks about his life and his experiences working in the mine. In the video you have clipped photographs of the landscape around Kiruna, particularly the mountains Luossavaara and Kiirunavaara, in with the interview. Why have you chosen this particular angle in the project?
We wanted to find a basic starting point in order to talk about Kiruna: stories and histories, the people, the city and the mine. How can one acquire adequate insight into Kiruna from only visiting for a few weeks? Our way in was to meet the oldest living person to have been employed by LKAB: he could describe the city’s development in his own words and reflect Kiruna through his own life story. In the interview, the pensioner Bengt Jernelöf talks about his life: both his free time and his work. He is a third generation LKAB worker and in many ways one can say that he is an embodiment of history, both the local and the national.
One could say that the work consists of three main components: the interview, the landscape and the music. The music, which is played on a fiddle, was created by the Sami joiker Lars-Ánte Kuhmunen from Kiruna. Can you say something about your choice of music?
It is violent to experience how the mountains near the city, Kiirunavaara and Luossavaara, have been affected by the mining operation. For us it is interesting to try to give a contrasting view of this image of nature. The joiking of the reindeer herder and musician Lars-Ánte Kuhmunen’s describes the mountain area around Kiruna from a non-industrial and more emotional perspective. It is salubrious. When the folk musician Vegar Vårdal from Norway interprets joiks on the fiddle, there is an intense musical presence, but also a distanced–and melancholic–feeling of absence.
Coming up: Dave Hullfish Bailey about his work with documentary and fictional material, Kiruna’s multiple rhythms and time scales as well as his idea for a workshop with teenagers in the city…
See all Interviews >>
Your work in the exhibition is a filmed interview with a retired miner from Kiruna, Bengt Jernelöf. He talks about his life and his experiences working in the mine. In the video you have clipped photographs of the landscape around Kiruna, particularly the mountains Luossavaara and Kiirunavaara, in with the interview. Why have you chosen this particular angle in the project?
We wanted to find a basic starting point in order to talk about Kiruna: stories and histories, the people, the city and the mine. How can one acquire adequate insight into Kiruna from only visiting for a few weeks? Our way in was to meet the oldest living person to have been employed by LKAB: he could describe the city’s development in his own words and reflect Kiruna through his own life story. In the interview, the pensioner Bengt Jernelöf talks about his life: both his free time and his work. He is a third generation LKAB worker and in many ways one can say that he is an embodiment of history, both the local and the national.
One could say that the work consists of three main components: the interview, the landscape and the music. The music, which is played on a fiddle, was created by the Sami joiker Lars-Ánte Kuhmunen from Kiruna. Can you say something about your choice of music?
It is violent to experience how the mountains near the city, Kiirunavaara and Luossavaara, have been affected by the mining operation. For us it is interesting to try to give a contrasting view of this image of nature. The joiking of the reindeer herder and musician Lars-Ánte Kuhmunen’s describes the mountain area around Kiruna from a non-industrial and more emotional perspective. It is salubrious. When the folk musician Vegar Vårdal from Norway interprets joiks on the fiddle, there is an intense musical presence, but also a distanced–and melancholic–feeling of absence.
Coming up: Dave Hullfish Bailey about his work with documentary and fictional material, Kiruna’s multiple rhythms and time scales as well as his idea for a workshop with teenagers in the city…
See all Interviews >>
Monday, June 4. 2012
Exhibition Countdown – Short Interview No. 3: Boris Sieverts
16 days to go until the works of Kirunatopia / In the Shadow of the Future will be shown at Bildmuseet in Umeå! Until then enjoy reading the third interview of our exhibition countdown: Boris Sieverts about his up-coming guidebook and Kiruna as the most exotic place.
The act of walking is an important part of your research methodology. Do you plan your routes beforehand using maps or are they random? How did you apply this method to Kiruna?
Kiruna is, at first sight, a clear and simple object of inquiry: you have the city on one side, then a strip of no man’s land in the middle, and then the mine. There are two mountains, a communal part of the town and a corporate part, a commercial zone, a smaller, abandoned mine, and the city’s outskirts are pretty barren. That’s why, from very early on, I thought I’d make a small book instead of doing a tour: because the whole story is so compact and easy to tell, and yet exciting. Because of the easily surveyable character of the city, it was simple for me to plan the days: today I want to walk once around Mount Kiruna, tomorrow I want to walk around Mount Luossavaara, then I want to explore the commercial zone and go to Tuollavaara, and then maybe a day in the library and at the Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authority, and so on. Of course, in the end, the days weren’t that simple and there were still decisions to be made about where to go over the course of the day, but overall I enjoyed the lack of a certain spatial and urban complexity, combined with a big story and quite a few monumental aspects, such as the natural environment, the idea of the city drowning in the mine, the light, the mine itself, the dumpsite near the golf course, etc. As I am so accustomed to exploring places in preparation for guided tours, I was naturally still searching for some connections that were missing from the map and things like that. In the end I also came up with a nice concept for a tour that would show Kiruna and its location and position in the landscape, including the mine, and its relation to, and effect on, the surrounding nature. That idea has now become part of the book manuscript.
In this exhibition you will present excerpts from this up-coming guidebook on the cityscape of Kiruna. What image of the city would you like to present and why?
Kiruna is probably the most exotic place I’d ever been. A lot of that is due to the light, but also its status as a city so far from any other city. I mostly do research in heavily urbanised areas, and sometimes in the countryside, but an inland city in the middle of all that wilderness, covered in snow–so that I couldn’t get an idea of the soil, the vegetation, etc.–that was really bizarre for me (especially on my first visit). I don’t know if I could have enjoyed it without the story of the mine. That, of course, is such a powerful, evocative concept that it tends to dominate the way you think about the place. It is helpful to have such a super concept at the beginning, however, and later on you don’t need to rely on it as much.
To be honest, I can’t elucidate precisely what Kiruna means to me. It is a collection of quite ephemeral feelings mixed with moments of solitude. The very concrete story of the mine is somehow parallel to that experience. I wasn’t there long enough to get to the point where I can tell you what the one has to do with the other, although I am sure that they are linked. When I started to cut out the snow piles with Photoshop, I instantly felt that this has got something to do with Kiruna that I couldn’t quite capture in my writings and photographs. Maybe it is that moment, but I’m not sure. The writing and photographs are clearly from an outsider’s perspective. Someone was there, spent his days doing nothing but exploring and thinking about the place, and left again. It’s a report of how far I got.
Coming up: Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen interviewed the oldest living LKAB-worker and explain why they chose a Sami joiker to create music for their work…
See all Interviews >>
The act of walking is an important part of your research methodology. Do you plan your routes beforehand using maps or are they random? How did you apply this method to Kiruna?
Kiruna is, at first sight, a clear and simple object of inquiry: you have the city on one side, then a strip of no man’s land in the middle, and then the mine. There are two mountains, a communal part of the town and a corporate part, a commercial zone, a smaller, abandoned mine, and the city’s outskirts are pretty barren. That’s why, from very early on, I thought I’d make a small book instead of doing a tour: because the whole story is so compact and easy to tell, and yet exciting. Because of the easily surveyable character of the city, it was simple for me to plan the days: today I want to walk once around Mount Kiruna, tomorrow I want to walk around Mount Luossavaara, then I want to explore the commercial zone and go to Tuollavaara, and then maybe a day in the library and at the Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authority, and so on. Of course, in the end, the days weren’t that simple and there were still decisions to be made about where to go over the course of the day, but overall I enjoyed the lack of a certain spatial and urban complexity, combined with a big story and quite a few monumental aspects, such as the natural environment, the idea of the city drowning in the mine, the light, the mine itself, the dumpsite near the golf course, etc. As I am so accustomed to exploring places in preparation for guided tours, I was naturally still searching for some connections that were missing from the map and things like that. In the end I also came up with a nice concept for a tour that would show Kiruna and its location and position in the landscape, including the mine, and its relation to, and effect on, the surrounding nature. That idea has now become part of the book manuscript.
In this exhibition you will present excerpts from this up-coming guidebook on the cityscape of Kiruna. What image of the city would you like to present and why?
Kiruna is probably the most exotic place I’d ever been. A lot of that is due to the light, but also its status as a city so far from any other city. I mostly do research in heavily urbanised areas, and sometimes in the countryside, but an inland city in the middle of all that wilderness, covered in snow–so that I couldn’t get an idea of the soil, the vegetation, etc.–that was really bizarre for me (especially on my first visit). I don’t know if I could have enjoyed it without the story of the mine. That, of course, is such a powerful, evocative concept that it tends to dominate the way you think about the place. It is helpful to have such a super concept at the beginning, however, and later on you don’t need to rely on it as much.
To be honest, I can’t elucidate precisely what Kiruna means to me. It is a collection of quite ephemeral feelings mixed with moments of solitude. The very concrete story of the mine is somehow parallel to that experience. I wasn’t there long enough to get to the point where I can tell you what the one has to do with the other, although I am sure that they are linked. When I started to cut out the snow piles with Photoshop, I instantly felt that this has got something to do with Kiruna that I couldn’t quite capture in my writings and photographs. Maybe it is that moment, but I’m not sure. The writing and photographs are clearly from an outsider’s perspective. Someone was there, spent his days doing nothing but exploring and thinking about the place, and left again. It’s a report of how far I got.
Coming up: Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen interviewed the oldest living LKAB-worker and explain why they chose a Sami joiker to create music for their work…
See all Interviews >>
Saturday, June 2. 2012
Exhibition Countdown – Short Interview No. 2: Britta Marakatt-Labba
18 days left until the exhibition! Here is our second interview with Britta Marakatt-Labba about the concept of moving in the Sami culture and the lifespan of those materials that are needed to build a goahti.
The technique that you tend to work with the most is embroidery with fine yarns. In this exhibition you’ve created a spatial installation that consists of several different parts, where embroidery is included, amongst other things. Can you say something about the different parts of the work and your choice of material and technique?
I have chosen to work with the Sami goahti, a form of shelter that it easy to transport. When living in a goahti you barely leave traces or wounds in nature, only the árran (hearth) and its stones remain to show that people have once lived there. It can be compared to the foundation that remains after you move a house. For me it has come naturally to work with materials such as stone, wood and textiles, since all these materials exist in the way of living and moving with a goahti. Things that are made of wood go back to nature eventually. Textiles also have their own lifespan: curtains left hanging in an abandoned house will eventually fade and fall apart.
For me the door to a goahti is very symbolic – the outward face that shows who lives inside. I have chosen to embroider on the inside of my door, which should reflect what kind of person it is that has sewn the door itself. Door rods hold the door in place, hearthstones have received various place names to show in which direction the people move – where will one pitch up next? Kiruna’s move has, as we all know, been discussed to death. The big question has been if the city should move east or west. How beneficial are the winds and the weather if you move to the west? We Sami have the same discussions when we chose a place to live… The direction of the winds has influenced the placement of the goahti door. Situating the entrance to the dwelling has been important.
Your work alludes to the myriad ways in the Sami experience in which moving is part of the pattern of life. Can you say something about what the concept of moving means to you?
As someone who has had the privilege of living in a goahti, moving has meant easily being able to pack up your few possessions and go. Just as naturally as you come to a place, you also move from there: first the fire is set up, then you set up the tent poles and put the cloth around the bars, the door is usually facing the south – the wind from the north is cold. It is also important to make sure that the location one chooses offers peace and quiet. One also ensures that the site has good access to water and plenty of firewood. It should be a place to inhabit and to live in harmony with nature.
Coming up: Boris Sieverts’ thoughts on the act of walking as a research methodology, his guidebook and Kiruna’s lack of a spatial and urban complexity…
See all Interviews >>
The technique that you tend to work with the most is embroidery with fine yarns. In this exhibition you’ve created a spatial installation that consists of several different parts, where embroidery is included, amongst other things. Can you say something about the different parts of the work and your choice of material and technique?
I have chosen to work with the Sami goahti, a form of shelter that it easy to transport. When living in a goahti you barely leave traces or wounds in nature, only the árran (hearth) and its stones remain to show that people have once lived there. It can be compared to the foundation that remains after you move a house. For me it has come naturally to work with materials such as stone, wood and textiles, since all these materials exist in the way of living and moving with a goahti. Things that are made of wood go back to nature eventually. Textiles also have their own lifespan: curtains left hanging in an abandoned house will eventually fade and fall apart.
For me the door to a goahti is very symbolic – the outward face that shows who lives inside. I have chosen to embroider on the inside of my door, which should reflect what kind of person it is that has sewn the door itself. Door rods hold the door in place, hearthstones have received various place names to show in which direction the people move – where will one pitch up next? Kiruna’s move has, as we all know, been discussed to death. The big question has been if the city should move east or west. How beneficial are the winds and the weather if you move to the west? We Sami have the same discussions when we chose a place to live… The direction of the winds has influenced the placement of the goahti door. Situating the entrance to the dwelling has been important.
Your work alludes to the myriad ways in the Sami experience in which moving is part of the pattern of life. Can you say something about what the concept of moving means to you?
As someone who has had the privilege of living in a goahti, moving has meant easily being able to pack up your few possessions and go. Just as naturally as you come to a place, you also move from there: first the fire is set up, then you set up the tent poles and put the cloth around the bars, the door is usually facing the south – the wind from the north is cold. It is also important to make sure that the location one chooses offers peace and quiet. One also ensures that the site has good access to water and plenty of firewood. It should be a place to inhabit and to live in harmony with nature.
Coming up: Boris Sieverts’ thoughts on the act of walking as a research methodology, his guidebook and Kiruna’s lack of a spatial and urban complexity…
See all Interviews >>
Wednesday, May 30. 2012
Exhibition Countdown – Short Interview No. 1: Ingo Vetter
Only three weeks to go until the first exhibition of Kirunatopia opens up at Bildmuseet. To shorten the time of waiting the blog will countdown to the opening by publishing short interviews with the participating artists, conducted by the curators Kim Einarsson and Brita Täljedal. Find out about the artists' thoughts and ideas, their projects and working processes, and – see you soon in Umeå!
Let’s start with Ingo Vetter, who found his own way of getting access to a closed off area called Ön and explains why Kiruna differs from other cities in transformation.
For the show you have put together four films. One of them is filmed from above, from the air, and shows the old residential area Ön, which is now closed off and cannot be visited due to cracking in the bedrock and the risk of collapse. How did you make the film?
The underground mining of the slanted ore body generated land deformations on the surface, which are separated into three different zones: zones of deformation, cracking and collapse. Deformation zones are still accessible, but all buildings and infrastructure have to be demolished; cracking zones are already blocked off with a fence and cracks and craters can be seen clearly; in collapse zones the landscape is breaking apart and plummeting down into the mine. The buildings of the former area of Ön were already torn town in the 1980s and the area today is between the crack and collapse zones. Remnants of the road network remain and the foundations of certain buildings are visible. The cracking is moving progressively forward and soon all traces of urban construction will vanish. The land deformation is approaching the current city at a rate of seven centimetres per day – in this way Ön previews the future fate of Kiruna.
To be able to shoot in the cordoned-off zones I needed a flying device that would be able to move slowly and smoothly. At the same time it needed to be large enough to be seen and controlled from a location outside the cordon. I built a 3.5 metre-long remote-controlled zeppelin, which was both large enough to carry a camera and small enough to be able to pick up all the details. The biggest problem was the zeppelin’s wind sensitivity: it became almost uncontrollable with the slightest gust of wind – and it’s very windy in Kiruna. Simultaneously, a certain loss of control is a prerequisite for being able to create the tentative camera movement, which contrast with the shots from the remote-controlled loading machines down in the mine.
Can you say something about Ön’s history and could you say something about why you chose this subject in your project for Kirunatopia?
Several areas from the city’s origins were torn down in connection to the mining activities, but Ön was also a residential area and people who grew up there still live in Kiruna. For me, as an outsider, many stories of the city’s earlier days seem to be associated with Ön. The memories are still vivid and the stories are filled with a sense of loss. At the same time, I wanted to reach a certain ‘remoteness’ and Ön functions here as a metaphor for a separate part of a former whole – a motif that recurs in the film with the remote-controlled machines and in the text.
You have previously worked on other projects that involve cities in transformation. Do you see any differences between the processes of transformation in Kiruna compared to these other cities?
I have earlier worked with artistic and/or research projects in Wolfsburg, Cottbus and Nova Huta, but above all in Detroit, while I’ve been working in Kiruna since 2007. All of these cities are experiencing very specific transformations. A common factor, however, is that they all are or have been mono-industrial cities, often completely dependent on a single company. This creates an atmosphere like the Wild West – anything is possible and the industry’s power seems infinite. Simultaneously, the enormous size of these operations reduces the individual’s importance and in the end raises questions about the level of democratic participation in society.
The difference in relation to cities in Germany, Poland, and the United States is that Kiruna’s urban transformation and move has not originated in an economic crisis; on the contrary, it is precisely because the mine is successful: the city must move so that the mine can further increase production. The Swedish government’s responsibility that the transformation process is subject to regulation (and political consensus) - concerning social welfare and safety, preservation of historical assets and the environment, and taking account of the reindeer management, etc. - collides partially with the state-owned mining company LKAB’s business and profits. The result is a situation full of contradictions, which makes it particularly intriguing for us artists.
Coming up: Britta Marakatt-Labba talks about her choice of material, her technique and about what it is like to live in a Sami Goahti…
See all Interviews >>
Let’s start with Ingo Vetter, who found his own way of getting access to a closed off area called Ön and explains why Kiruna differs from other cities in transformation.
For the show you have put together four films. One of them is filmed from above, from the air, and shows the old residential area Ön, which is now closed off and cannot be visited due to cracking in the bedrock and the risk of collapse. How did you make the film?
The underground mining of the slanted ore body generated land deformations on the surface, which are separated into three different zones: zones of deformation, cracking and collapse. Deformation zones are still accessible, but all buildings and infrastructure have to be demolished; cracking zones are already blocked off with a fence and cracks and craters can be seen clearly; in collapse zones the landscape is breaking apart and plummeting down into the mine. The buildings of the former area of Ön were already torn town in the 1980s and the area today is between the crack and collapse zones. Remnants of the road network remain and the foundations of certain buildings are visible. The cracking is moving progressively forward and soon all traces of urban construction will vanish. The land deformation is approaching the current city at a rate of seven centimetres per day – in this way Ön previews the future fate of Kiruna.
To be able to shoot in the cordoned-off zones I needed a flying device that would be able to move slowly and smoothly. At the same time it needed to be large enough to be seen and controlled from a location outside the cordon. I built a 3.5 metre-long remote-controlled zeppelin, which was both large enough to carry a camera and small enough to be able to pick up all the details. The biggest problem was the zeppelin’s wind sensitivity: it became almost uncontrollable with the slightest gust of wind – and it’s very windy in Kiruna. Simultaneously, a certain loss of control is a prerequisite for being able to create the tentative camera movement, which contrast with the shots from the remote-controlled loading machines down in the mine.
Can you say something about Ön’s history and could you say something about why you chose this subject in your project for Kirunatopia?
Several areas from the city’s origins were torn down in connection to the mining activities, but Ön was also a residential area and people who grew up there still live in Kiruna. For me, as an outsider, many stories of the city’s earlier days seem to be associated with Ön. The memories are still vivid and the stories are filled with a sense of loss. At the same time, I wanted to reach a certain ‘remoteness’ and Ön functions here as a metaphor for a separate part of a former whole – a motif that recurs in the film with the remote-controlled machines and in the text.
You have previously worked on other projects that involve cities in transformation. Do you see any differences between the processes of transformation in Kiruna compared to these other cities?
I have earlier worked with artistic and/or research projects in Wolfsburg, Cottbus and Nova Huta, but above all in Detroit, while I’ve been working in Kiruna since 2007. All of these cities are experiencing very specific transformations. A common factor, however, is that they all are or have been mono-industrial cities, often completely dependent on a single company. This creates an atmosphere like the Wild West – anything is possible and the industry’s power seems infinite. Simultaneously, the enormous size of these operations reduces the individual’s importance and in the end raises questions about the level of democratic participation in society.
The difference in relation to cities in Germany, Poland, and the United States is that Kiruna’s urban transformation and move has not originated in an economic crisis; on the contrary, it is precisely because the mine is successful: the city must move so that the mine can further increase production. The Swedish government’s responsibility that the transformation process is subject to regulation (and political consensus) - concerning social welfare and safety, preservation of historical assets and the environment, and taking account of the reindeer management, etc. - collides partially with the state-owned mining company LKAB’s business and profits. The result is a situation full of contradictions, which makes it particularly intriguing for us artists.
Coming up: Britta Marakatt-Labba talks about her choice of material, her technique and about what it is like to live in a Sami Goahti…
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Friday, April 13. 2012
Coming up in June: Kirunatopia@Bildmuseet
No need to wait any longer: The first exhibition of the project will open on the 20th of June at Bildmuseet in Umeå. Kirunatopia / In the Shadow of the Future will show the works of twelve international and Swedish artists based on the town in transition. The curatorial team for the exhibition consists of Kim Einarsson, curator of Kirunatopia and director of Konsthall C in Stockholm, and Brita Täljedal, curator at Bildmuseet in Umeå.
The Bildmuseet has recently moved to its new location and building within the Arts Campus of Umeå University and is led by director Katarina Pierre since May 2011. It is a part of the University and is administered in the same way as the other departments on the campus, which constitutes an exception in Sweden. The museum is also open to the public. “That is amazing”, explains Katarina Pierre, “because it means we can easily cooperate with the students, institutes or the Art Academy.”
In conjunction to Kirunatopia / In the Shadow of the Future, she is planning a program that includes talks with researchers and theorists from the University about their work in relation to the exhibition, as well as lectures and workshops held by guests at the University or other institutions.
The move of the museum plays an important role here. “From now on, we are next-door neighbors with the Institute of Design, the School of Architecture and the Academy of Fine Arts situated right at the Umeå River”, says Pierre. All of these institutions have separate buildings, but are connected to each other underground.
International contemporary art is the main focus of Bildmuseet. But besides that, according to Katarina Pierre and Brita Täljedal, the specific location of the Bildmuseet should be reflected in the museum’s program.
The Bildmuseet has recently moved to its new location and building within the Arts Campus of Umeå University and is led by director Katarina Pierre since May 2011. It is a part of the University and is administered in the same way as the other departments on the campus, which constitutes an exception in Sweden. The museum is also open to the public. “That is amazing”, explains Katarina Pierre, “because it means we can easily cooperate with the students, institutes or the Art Academy.”
In conjunction to Kirunatopia / In the Shadow of the Future, she is planning a program that includes talks with researchers and theorists from the University about their work in relation to the exhibition, as well as lectures and workshops held by guests at the University or other institutions.
The move of the museum plays an important role here. “From now on, we are next-door neighbors with the Institute of Design, the School of Architecture and the Academy of Fine Arts situated right at the Umeå River”, says Pierre. All of these institutions have separate buildings, but are connected to each other underground.
International contemporary art is the main focus of Bildmuseet. But besides that, according to Katarina Pierre and Brita Täljedal, the specific location of the Bildmuseet should be reflected in the museum’s program.
Monday, January 23. 2012
Trainspotting
Soon enough the trip felt like being a trainspotter's endeavor: Just five minutes after getting away from the residence house I stopped again, pulled the camera and tripod out of the car to film a long line of iron ore carriages, whose load emitted steamy clouds into the morning sky. The sun had not risen yet, but the light, as all North nerds know, is the most fantastic during dawn and dusk. So I started a short but intense trip with cold feet.
Short the trip would be since dusk arrives at 1 p.m. and it is light till maybe 2 p.m. By that time I wanted to be in Narvik already, following the railway line that connects Kiruna with Narvik. Initially I wanted to be on the train – imagining it might rise even higher through the last part towards Narvik than the much newer street that follows the tracks otherwise. But then I realized that taking pictures out of the wagons would just not capture the train itself. One would anyway be on the passenger train, one of two day-to-day, that they want to get rid of as soon as possible to put even more ore trains on the schedule.
The train it is that makes Kiruna possible – maybe even more than the mine (according to Lennart Lantto, who was again of great help). To begin with the invention of the train in England and the giant task, undertaken by British workers, of laying tracks for a railway through the mountains from Narvik to Kiruna, the iron ore could finally reach the world market: Narvik is the closest ice-free harbor. The Gulf Stream keeps the waters from freezing, meanwhile the sea is closing on the Swedish side, in Luleå.
If this sounds like an advertisement story for the exploitation of Northern Europe, I cannot really help it. I feel like caught into the fascination of these ventures: the work, through summer and winter, laying out tracks; just as the mine, the omnipresent humming and the metal bangs, the lights in the winter darkness, the steams, the giant destruction of land caused by the breaking down of the earth into the mine closing the tunnels, when they are empty and left by the machines. And the history with its dark parts: The ore was shipped to England and Germany, firing WW II, until the Germans conquered Norway. From there on tons of ore were shipped to German steel mills and, I imagine, used in the process to built giant battleships like the Tirpitz, which than steamed towards North again to take part in the “defense” of the long Norwegian coast and especially Narvik. Only to be brought down in no time by English ships and planes: The one and only trip of the Bismarck took eight days and cost 3.500 sailors lives. That way the ore returned to the North and formed a giant coffin for thousands of soldiers on the bottom of the sea.
Continue reading "Trainspotting" »
Short the trip would be since dusk arrives at 1 p.m. and it is light till maybe 2 p.m. By that time I wanted to be in Narvik already, following the railway line that connects Kiruna with Narvik. Initially I wanted to be on the train – imagining it might rise even higher through the last part towards Narvik than the much newer street that follows the tracks otherwise. But then I realized that taking pictures out of the wagons would just not capture the train itself. One would anyway be on the passenger train, one of two day-to-day, that they want to get rid of as soon as possible to put even more ore trains on the schedule.
The train it is that makes Kiruna possible – maybe even more than the mine (according to Lennart Lantto, who was again of great help). To begin with the invention of the train in England and the giant task, undertaken by British workers, of laying tracks for a railway through the mountains from Narvik to Kiruna, the iron ore could finally reach the world market: Narvik is the closest ice-free harbor. The Gulf Stream keeps the waters from freezing, meanwhile the sea is closing on the Swedish side, in Luleå.
If this sounds like an advertisement story for the exploitation of Northern Europe, I cannot really help it. I feel like caught into the fascination of these ventures: the work, through summer and winter, laying out tracks; just as the mine, the omnipresent humming and the metal bangs, the lights in the winter darkness, the steams, the giant destruction of land caused by the breaking down of the earth into the mine closing the tunnels, when they are empty and left by the machines. And the history with its dark parts: The ore was shipped to England and Germany, firing WW II, until the Germans conquered Norway. From there on tons of ore were shipped to German steel mills and, I imagine, used in the process to built giant battleships like the Tirpitz, which than steamed towards North again to take part in the “defense” of the long Norwegian coast and especially Narvik. Only to be brought down in no time by English ships and planes: The one and only trip of the Bismarck took eight days and cost 3.500 sailors lives. That way the ore returned to the North and formed a giant coffin for thousands of soldiers on the bottom of the sea.
Continue reading "Trainspotting" »
Saturday, November 5. 2011
Creative Construction Works: The Kirunatopia Conference in Stockholm and the New Museum in Umeå
Ten months after the first collective visit to the city of Kiruna, all participating artists have gathered again for a conference in Stockholm. By now almost all the residencies have taken place. The artists have experienced the remote place once more, but this time on their own. The meeting provided a space for sharing and discussing research and impressions as well as presenting their ongoing working processes. Present at the conference along with the artists were Kim Einarsson, curator of Kirunatopia, Rainer Hauswirth, director of the Goethe-Institut in Stockholm and initiator of the project as well as two guests from Umeå, director Katarina Pierre and curator Brita Täljedal from Bildmuseet, which will move to its new location and building within the Art Campus and show the first exhibition of Kirunatopia in 2012.
Continue reading "Creative Construction Works: The Kirunatopia..." »
Continue reading "Creative Construction Works: The Kirunatopia..." »
