SOME NOTES ON

ASSIGNMENT 2 The Perforated Landscape

This phase will focus on mining’s impact on the landscape, study new geological surveys, modes of mining, the life cycle of a mine and mining’s environmental impacts

Modes of Mining + their impact on landscape. Each mineral has a particular set of operations associate with its production - each producing different effects on the landscape. For example - looking at Kiruna - its evident the operation is underground and the surface is organized to handle waste rock flows, tailings, processing, and transportation. Kirkenes, as a surface operation, has a very different footprint and set of behaviours. Breaking down these typologies and fully understanding how mines are planned, executed, phased, closed, etc. is something that would be absolutely necessary before any speculations could begin to be formed. Monday February 13, Kelly Doran is going to have a workshop with us on these themes.

High North Faced with increased consumption of and reduced access to minerals, the world looks to the northern areas for its next global pool of minerals, metals and ores. Prospects of combining local energy sources with processing and proximity to emerging trade routes makes Northern Norway a possible new industrialized zone. Already matured in the Finnish, Swedish and North-west Russia, the mining industry has only reached its adolescent phase in Northern Norway, but things are about to change. 100 000 000 NOK was invested in exploration in Finnmark in the summer of 2010. In the 2012 the Norwegian government will present its report on minerals in the north. The national transportation plan set to be launched in 2013 will focus on projects enabling future industrial exploitation of the north. Prospects look promising, but consequences remain unknown.

Legislation The act of minerals (mineralloven) has established a new framework for the mining industry, but the mining industry is also regulated by a set of other acts. Plan og bygningsloven // motorferdselsloven// kulturminneloven// naturmangfoldsloven// forurensningsloven// jordlova// vannressursloven// reindriftsloven// Finnmarksloven(i Finnmark)Plan og Bygningsloven is the framework for the jurisdiction of landscape architects, architects and

Fields of Exploration - Limits of Exploitation is a master studio at AHO - Oslo School of Architecture and Design, in the winter of 2012 led by Knut Eirik Dahl, Kjerstin Uhre, Espen Røyseland and Øystein Rø.

Svalbard

planners jurisdiction. It’s “our act”. This Act shall safeguard the democratic processes around land use allocations. From planning processes in cities and inhabited districts we already know that there is a democratic deficit in planning processes. Questions about Mineral Exploration has an even greater deficit of participation, it also have a shortage of disclosure level. Neither planners in local authorities, users of natural areas or the politicians have a clear picture of how a procedure like opening mineral extraction will manifests itself. It is a gap between the disclosure level of the developers and the authorities that negotiate of behalf of society. Politicians and administrations in a municipality often stretch themselves to keep the prospect of investment inside the municipality. These processes can go very far before someone will perceive what is happening - often after the consultation period is over.

Legislation is contextualized reality. Act upon act – this opens a path to literature, to experience, to exchange. It also opens for opportunistic economic Interests to play out their interests, developers are always pushing the borders of the text, they want more, they want to alter the conditions and gain more rom. When this room is opened, it’s called dispensation under certain conditions; these conditions will inevitably be altered according to physical necessity. To be prepared for these alterations it might be of outmost necessity to in advance go beyond the text. Enhance realities, stories and values, paint them out, and make them public before developers enter the field. To do this we need to enrich the field of exploration,

experience more and uncover a multitude of stories of the territory, which we will explore deeper in assignment 3.

The CatalogueIt has not yet been made a systematic visual investigation that presents mining industries future impacts on landscape that can be used as a tool in the democratic processes. We are going to fill this gap by creating a comprehensive catalogue over the physical world of mineral extraction. The groups that are working with the mines are going to investigate short term and long term impacts of known examples. This goes on landscape alterations; it goes on different types of mining technology, landscape alterations, toxicity and waste, chemical components and leakage to wetland systems and living biotopes. It also goes on investigating the infrastructure and industry clusters that are forming around the mine. Ref. Jack Ødegård’s lecture.A part of this assignment is possible to do as an art project; you use your senses to grasp the scale of impact on landscape and environment. (Photo, collage, film, painting, coal drawing, ink, installation, sculpture….) Artist Lina Persson’s lecture Wednesday February 15 will be the starting point of this approach.

A leap into the FutureIn the discussion with Christopher Eads about mining being nasty business, because of big money and the imbedded acceptance on the negative effects on landscape and culture, he replied to a question on how he regards mining in the arctic that there is “lower

level of biodiversity here than in the rainforest”. This opens the question; “How do we value remote, scarcely vegetated territories with low population density in a global perspective and what about the future of traditional uses of the territory?”Norway also claims to have better jurisdiction and social control. Tore Tanum stated on our workshop with the Foreign Department that the High North politics should prove wrong the historic notion; “The bad guys always win”.We need to find new tools to openly debate the emerging pressures on culture and landscape, new points of departure for mapping and new ideas for landscape policies.

Encircling the Field On both sides of the Swedish/Norwegian borders a series of steps is taken to organize all the actual forces of mineral exploration and exploitation. In Stockholm a national seminar took place on the 30th of January in this field, and in Mo i Rana on the 1. and 2. of February all the Norwegian competence gathered to discuss and speculate on a future boost of mineral resources. It is possible to say that this two events and a series of national and international moves on the political level is formulating a new agenda. On this agenda is reuse of existing mines, extended exploitation of existing mines and fields. Prospecting for possible resources over the whole Northern territory is now a main activity, including advanced technologies. With a leap into the future it is possible to see circumpolar territories as The Perforated Landscape.Included in this is a new and imaginative relation

Kiruna Bjørnevatn (Kirkenes, Sør-Varanger) Bjørnevatn (Kirkenes, Sør-Varanger) Svalbard

between energy resources (water, gas etc) and the extraction and refining of mineral resources in the North. Added to this leap into a near future is the melting ice and possible new permanent sea routes. The perforated landscape, and the catalogue we are going to produce, shall uncover not only the onsite typologies, but also these possible larger systems of exploitation and production.In a way we are giving a portrait of mining now and in time to come. It includes possible dramatic speculations, and we are searching for more than what just meets the eye.The Kiruna example is an example of the forces at hand and the demand and consumption in a growing world. Big parts of the town are being demolished and the city is on the move because the State owned mining company LKAB is undermining the city. The Kiruna/Narvik relation is also an example of how this works as a complex system across borders.

Colonies - a possible reader of mining activities The natural resources in every part of the world have high stakes. Aluminium plants and smelters is located near to cheapest possible energy resources. Island is a forerunner here. Aluminium plants is formerly one of Norways nation building industrial strategies, connected to smart politics related to the use of water resources. Books has been written about this Norwegian success story. The cities of the North are in many cases industrial monocultures related to mineral resources. Mo i Rana, Mosjøen, Kirkenes, Svalbard/Longyearbyen, Kiruna, Svaapavara, Nikkel etc.

Norway is now opening a new coal mine in Svalbard, the dominating market strategies pays for any kind of energy. In the Svalbard concept lies more than coal as a hidden dimension, it is related to geopolitics.

Kiruna and the smaller towns in this large Northern Swedish fields of Iron Ore resources was conceived model towns and societies when the where established. The history of the relation between the mine and the working force, the towns, elaborate on this concept. But it can also be seen as a kind of colonizing of the territory, where rules for all the aspects of this model of society was negotiated, and still is.This negotiation between mining industries and the society takes on really different shape and form everywhere it takes place. Christopher Eads African examples visualize that very clearly. Greenland as a new possible field of exploitation is now in the middle of this kind of negotiations. The question posed is then this: In our possible perforated landscape of the future, what type of negotiations will rule the game. Is a new type of radical negotiation between the industry and the society as a whole in the making? Have a new set of rules for this type of (mining) colonies to be formulated in the circumpolar arena?

(The notions Colony and Radical Negotiation was introduced related to the North by Territorial Agency/John Palesimo and Ann- Sofi Rönnskog in their lecture at Territorial Practices in Tromsø January the 26th 2012)

Case 1: Kiruna-Narvik + Bjørnevatn (Kirkenes, Sør-Varanger)Case 2: SvalbardCase 3: Bieddjovággi + Nussir (Kvalsund)Case 4: Regional situation

Bieddjovággi Nussir