Pasvikdalen, Kirkenes
- 2026
It is a forest of machines and mountains of tailings from 110 years of iron ore production. Unlike a shrimp who eats dead material, leaving sustenance for the next organism in chain, the human leave most behind for it to exist in the state as it was when it got irrelevant. As I am walking around the iron mines of A/S Sydvaranger 15 minutes outside Kirkenes I see numbers of fragments from a over 100 year old story. Rust are formed on iron. The ground are made of rocks, sand, dust and rust. There is specific parts tied to the iron ore processing cycle. Broken structures, tied up rollers, lifts and ladders. Orange jumpsuits from the time it was abondened, hard hats with stickers indicating that the worker was fan of AC/DC, nude models, Volvo, Temrock underground etc. They tell stories of the workers that were here.
A story of extracting iron, expanding further and further into the ground and into the wild. A story that ended with the company going bankrupt in 2015. Bidjovagge Gruber and Rana Gruber at Storforshei, Nordland, were subsidiaries. After closure, the company was turned into an industrial park, which is partly owned by Sør-Varanger municipality and Varangerkraft. In 2023 a Swedish company called Grangex AB joined in for the sum of 330 000 000 NOK.
The year is now 2023 and A/S Sydvaranger is still hopeful of getting the operation up running again and are paying engineers to maintain the machines. The ”dream” of iron extraction became a product of capitalism and an abstract tradable potential of something that could become something. Much of the technology produced for the mining industry is now obsolete.
Mark Wiggley wrote that technologies are evolving, but only reinventing itself. We are the only species that produce things that dont work. We present designs as if we are the one who have discovered it. We make useless things just for the sake of it looking nice. That design is a retroactive label to claim certain strange relationship we have with objects in the moment where we feel we can move beyond the strangeness to something else.”
- Bendik Stette
A multidisciplinary project that critically examines the historical and socio-economic influence of AS Sydvaranger on the population of Kirkenes, the pervasive military power structures that shape the region’s geopolitical significance, and the individual’s negotiation of identity and agency within these external frameworks.
Through the integration of photography, archival research, and architectural diagrams, the work seeks to uncover the intricate interplay between industrial legacies, militarization, and the lived experiences of those inhabiting this contested landscape.
“Pasvikdalen” originates from my father's diaries from his upbringing in a mining community in Pasvikdalen — a time marked by collective desperation and depression. Through the diaries, I gain insight into an existence shaped by both hope and hopelessness. The town's past hides, among other things, in the 50-square-kilometer mining facility that holds stories from a bygone era.
The legacy of the mining company A/S Sydvaranger highlights the cultural frictions that characterize the place and the search for identity in a mining village. The history also underscores the need for coexistence between nature, culture, and industry.
Through the project, I aim to explore the interplay between personal and collective memory, based on family archives and industrial history. By using photography, video, and archival material, I seek to analyze the role of photography in documenting loss, memory, and the passage of time, both within personal and public spheres.
