KIRUNA

Undermined by its own iron ore mine, Kiruna is being relocated two kilometres east. Buildings demolished, residents moved to a city built from scratch. I photographed what remains with a 4x5'' camera : a tool that carries time for a city losing its own.

I first heard about Kiruna years ago, while starting my project Savoir-Faire : a city in northern Sweden, built on the 100 years old mine that would have to be physically relocated because mine beneath it was consuming the ground it stood on. The idea stayed with me.

Last November, invited to screen my documentary film SÁMIS at the Kiruna film festival, I took my 4x5 Deardorff and my last three boxes of Portraits 400 I had left in the refrigerator. No assignment, no editorial framework. Just the desire to finally go.

The large-format camera is one of photography's oldest tools. It demands time, attention, and delicacy.  For a city being dismantled piece by piece, it felt like the only honest tool.

My host drove me through the streets. A hotel mid-demolition. A café, still warm-looking, permanently closed. An entire block reduced to rubble. And the site where the church once stood : now an empty lot, a fragment of wall.

I photographed the buildings before they disappear. Old, quietly beautiful structures now sealed, waiting. The mine often appears in the background like a ghost, patient and permanent.

After two days I tried to find people who had lost or were about to lose their homes. I made two portraits. There wasn't time for more.

This is the beginning of something. I intend to return, to continue the scene work and to focus on the portraits, maybe the interiors too. But these first images are where it starts.