The Mine, Not the City
Fiona Wiesner
The mine, not the city
This video essay is about the Swedish mining town Kiruna, filmed and edited in autumn and winter 2023. The video work is complemented by an archive that documents the video-essay The mine, not the city. It contains maps, articles, timelines, interviews and on-site video recordings of the impactful spatial and social proximity of the iron ore mine and the city of Kiruna. The thirty-two documents are organized by five chapters: A good place to live, 26 billion crowns, Here because of LKAB, Bought by LKAB and I travelled to Kiruna.
Map of Kiruna municipality, the mine and the projected new town.
Page 79 from the book The Mining District of Kiruna Stad, Sweden*, by Lucila Carlson.
Orthophoto, 1960.
Page 10 from the text "Refraiming Kiruna’s Relocation—Sustainable Production or a Sustainable Transformation?" by Aslı Tepecik Diş and Elahe Karimnia.