PYRAMIDA 2010-2013

The photographs in the series Pyramida show a mining settlement that belongs to one of the areas of Spitsbergen under Russian control. The area was once the largest mining site for brown coal outside the former Soviet Union. Until its closure in 2000 it was completely self-sufficient and was largely isolated from the Norwegian part of the archipelago as well as from the rest of the world. My interest is in the former ‘double’ island character of the area as well as the different layers of time that open up in design and atmosphere. The exploration of the pyramids resembles a journey into the past in which the visible reality of the place is overlaid with images from one’s own imagination.