The Swedish Town Being Swallowed by the Earth

A huge crack in the ground—caused by iron-ore mining—working its way toward Kiruna, Sweden. Photos by Klaus Thymann

The problem with aggressively mining a single site for more than a century is that it tends to damage the local landscape. For example, in Kiruna—a Swedish town that’s been exploiting its iron ore since the 1800s—a huge crack caused by extensive digging is now moving toward the suburbs and threatening to swallow up thousands of homes.

This has obviously caused a few problems, the main one being that no one wants to buy a house that’s about to disappear, leaving residents with no other option than to take a buyout offered by the government and move away.

A year ago, the photographer Klaus Thymann decided to spend the next decade documenting Kiruna’s changing environment and the locals who decide to stay. I met up with him to talk about his project.

VICE: Can you tell me a little about Kiruna?
Klaus Thymann: Kiruna is a mining town in the very north of Sweden. I think it’s the world’s biggest iron-ore mine—there were definitely mines there since before the town was founded in 1900. Because of the excessive mining, there’s a massive crack moving at 15 meters [16 yards] a year toward the city. It doesn’t look man-made, it’s so irregular and torn up. It’s scary. It means that the city is going to have to move elsewhere if it doesn’t want to be swallowed by the earth.

That sucks.
Yeah. From an engineering point of view, it’s pretty crazy that moving an entire city to a different location is even viable. People’s lives there are in a weird limbo. Most of these guys know that they’ll eventually have to move, but not exactly when. Also, they won’t be able to sell their houses because nobody’s going to want to buy. All they’ll be given is a fixed fee by the government.

So there are plans to actually relocate some of the city’s buildings?
Yeah. They’re going to pack up a lot of the historic buildings, like the wooden church, and then resurrect them somewhere else. It’s quite fascinating, really; it’s such a big, brutal project, and at the same time it’s also quite considerate—taking the old church down, putting it back up again. It says a lot about the complications of modern society—how we extract minerals from the earth, how we use the earth, and how we try to build our societies. I think it’s highly sophisticated.

Do you think that’s a cultural thing? I’m not sure you’d get that same level of care in other countries.
Maybe. Sweden is quite a mature society, so I do think it probably has something to do with that. But this is also a modern project—20 years ago, things might have been different. We may have reached a point where our history and values actually influence our decisions.

How do you feel about that? Is it a good thing that these buildings are going to be moved?
Yes and no. This [destruction] is all still happening for the extraction of iron ore, but it’s this complexity that fascinates me. By documenting it and by bringing people’s attention to the issue, I don’t pretend to have the answers, but if I can raise questions, then I think I may have created an interesting picture.

From all the people you’ve met so far in Kiruna, are there any particular stories that have stood out?
Well, I met quite a few people who have to move pretty soon—in a year and a half or so. I can sympathize with that kind of uncertainty. When you know you aren’t going to be in a place for that long, you stop caring about things like the chipped wallpaper. It must be an odd feeling—I don’t envy that.

A lot of them are going to move to the new town, but they’re still dealing with all sorts of secondary issues—like, if they manage to sell, will the price of their old house match that of a new one? Then there are things as simple as the climate; the town lies within the Arctic Circle, which isn’t ideal for construction.

When did you start working on this Kiruna project?
About a year ago. I’ve been up there twice so far. The plan is to keep going back frequently over about ten years or so. Some of the areas have already been shut off and are inaccessible, and some of the buildings are being taken down. Another aspect of the project is that each image is paired up with GPS coordinates. Because of that, I can start creating repetitive images—that way the viewer can see the changes over time. I don’t have a view as to when it’s going to finish, though.

Looking at your work, it’s clear you have an interest in mapping. Why is that?
Back in the late 1990s in Denmark, I worked on a project called Virus. We were dealing with subject matters that were very peripheral, a little counter-culture. We were the first to do a series on ECHELON, for example, which was actually the prequel to PRISM; it’s a big surveillance system that taps information [transmitted through telecommunications systems]. I went on to work on Hybrids, where I documented hybrid cultures all around the world—things like underground gardening in Tokyo. And now I’m also working on Project Pressure, which is mapping out glaciers across the globe. That’s a collaborative effort.

What I’m looking for in projects are things that are mainly unexploited and can give people a different view of the world. You see a picture, and then hopefully you start looking at structures in a different way.

UPDATE: LKAB, a Swedish mining company operating in Kiruna does not see things the same way. Click here for their responce to this article.

Follow Elektra on Twitter: @elektrakotsoni