Congress about The Industrial Heritage in Kiruna: Nasafjäll and Laisvall Mine

av | aug 29, 2025

The mine in Kiruna is the largest underground iron ore mine in the world. The mine is owned by the state-owned company LKAB. During the week of the conference on industrial heritage, it was said that one third of the city still had to be moved. This affects 2,700 homes and 6,000 people. Photo Maria Söderberg

Kiruna church was relocated during August 2025 as part of the ongoing urban transformation in Kiruna due to mining. The bell tower came into place a few days later. Photo Maria Söderberg 

Congress about The Industrial Heritage – A short report & photos

The organizers in Kiruna are the Swedish Industrial Memory Association (SIM), Jernkontoret, Luleå University of Technology, the Municipality of Kiruna, the Swedish National Heritage Board, and LKAB.

TICCIH Congress are held in the mining town Kiruna in northernmost Sweden, August 25 – 30, 2025. The title of the congress is “Heritage in action: Legacies of industry in future making” and focusing on tensions and controversies surrounding industrial heritage and its relation to wider tensions in present day society. Themes will range from issues regarding sustainability, inclusion and colonialism to future generations, popular culture and AI. The program was full of speakers from many different countries. A few talks lasted 45 minutes, but those were exceptions. Most of us had fifteen minutes within themed sessions. Over the course of several days, I had inspiring conversations with passionate cultural heritage enthusiasts from Norway, Egypt, Cuba, France, South Korea, India, and Finland. This year, the organizers had made a special effort to bring in participants from Asia.
For my part, I spoke about two subjects very close to my heart: Nasafjäll and Laisvall. Here’s a short report!

 

Aurora Kultur & Congress Kiruna 26/8-25:
The closure of the Laisvall mine was today highlighted in an honorable context!
I took part in a seminar block titled “How did industry become heritage? A multi-scale approach to analyse the industrial heritage process.”
This week, the world’s largest congress on industrial heritage is taking place, with an extensive program of events. The focus lies on how industrial heritage can shape the future, right in the midst of the green transition and broader societal change.
In Kiruna, home to the world’s largest underground iron ore mine, one finds a unique combination of long industrial history, Sámi land use, emerging future technologies, and Sweden’s spectacular subarctic nature—ingredients that set the stage for fascinating discussions.
In my session, Juliette Passilly from Canada presented “The Arvida heritage community: From socio-industrial to heritage utopia for a sustainable future.” We then moved to South Korea, where Hoon Tae Park spoke about the country’s first cement plant, the Mungyeong Cement Factory, built with support from the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency (UNKRA) after the Korean War.
Beini Guo, from China but based in Italy, shared her research on The Daye Iron Ore Mine in 1942. In the first half of the 20th century, the mine came under Japanese colonial influence through unequal treaties, becoming part of Japan’s industrial and military system. This left visible traces in its architecture and spatial organization, creating a complex legacy of colonial memory.
Florence Hachez-Leroy was responsible for the seminar. We spoke briefly afterwards, and she told me about similar emotional moments (such as the one in Laisvall) when an industry in France was about to shut down permanently. She is Associate Professor HDR of Modern History at the University of Artois, and an honorary member of the Institut universitaire de France.
Much more can be read about all these fascinating projects here: https://ticcih2025-kiruna.se/ 

The basis of Lena Berg Nilsson´s talk was about the result of Expedition Nasafjäll’s archaeological fieldwork, where the number of registered remains has increased from a handful of objects to several hundred since the project’s beginning in 2015. Photo Maria Söderberg

Aurora Kultur & Congress Kiruna 27/8-25.
More from Arjeplog Municipality! The theme of the session was Mining Heritage, moderator Dag Avango. MA in Archaeology Lena Berg Nilsson presented ”The Nasa silver works in northern Sweden – results from Expedition Nasafjäll 2015-2023”. She told about Expedition Nasafjäll as a collaborative project during the years 2015–2023, with the aim of increasing knowledge about the mining environment and silver mining at The Nasa silver works during the 1600s to the early 1900s.
– The collaboration had three main focuses – public events, antiquarian documentation and analyses of the results.
Her paper also raised questions about what awareness there was about the impact of mining on the environment and on the miners’ health.
Archaeometallurgist Ola Nilsson participated about ”defence” (försvar) and ”defence work” (försvarsarbete) which are two terms used when archaeologists in Sweden are describing different kind of remains in ancient mining areas. Nasafjäll is one of these areas.
– These terms are used by most archaeologists as they are synchronous and synonymous. Both terms relate to the owners of the mines obligation to defend the claim in periods when the actual mining was dormant for various reasons.
We learned that “Defence work” is a more modern term, defined in the Mining Charter of 1855.
– Over time, the actual work that was necessary to carry out on yearly basis was changed, and the “defence work” could be paid by means of a levy. “Defence” on the other hand, is an older term, but also more widened in definition.

In Sweden, defense work was the minimum amount of work that a holder of a bribe on any deposit or target had to perform annually, unless a rest period was obtained, in order to preserve his right to the deposit. During the congress, archaeologist Ola Nilsson spoke about these defense works based on Nasafjäll. Photo Maria Söderberg

 

Who’s Missing? The Neglected Agents of Industrial Heritage. Our thema. From the left Åsa Melin (Sweden), Ajija Mu (China/Finland), myself and Boris Cvitanic-Díaz, Chile.

Aijia Mu is from China but is affiliated with the University of Oulu, Finland. She spoke about the closure of Wangsiao Coal Mine, established in 1961 as the earliest and the largest coal mine in China. Photo Maria Söderberg

 

Talked about The Women at Nasafjäll in the 17th Century at TICCIH 2025, Kiruna.


Aurora Kultur & Congress Kiruna 29/8-25:
First out this morning at eight o’clock in the large hall Kaamos. The name is Finnish for darkness or polar night. Now, for the very first time, I was to speak about a subject I have tried to embrace: The Women at Nasafjäll in the 17th Century. In the source material from that time, they may appear, for example, as “Lucia Lappkona” or simply as “Wife” (without a name). It is evident that the families of the priests, often with a hard-working wife, or the contributions of Sámi women, are not given space. Just like on Monday (when I spoke about the Laisvall mine), several of us took part in this seminar block.
We all spoke under the theme: “Who’s Missing? The Neglected Agents of Industrial Heritage.” After me, Boris Cvitanic-Díaz from Universidad de Magallanes, Chile, spoke about how a factory has been transformed into a large tourist complex in Patagonia. Puerto Bories, about 5 km from central Puerto Natales, was a small “company town” centered around a facility for processing sheep meat and wool. His title was: “Dispossession’s Itinerary: From Industrial Complex to Heritage Spectacle.” In 1996 the Chilean state declared the site a national heritage. But today, it has been converted into a luxury hotel where the past is not displayed.
Aijia Mu is from China but is affiliated with the University of Oulu, Finland. She is a Doctoral Researcher in Archaeology, with a decade of experience in heritage studies. She spoke about the closure of Wangsiao Coal Mine, established in 1961 as the earliest and the largest coal mine in China. Her interviews on how employees perceived the closure feel universal. Her presentation was also titled: “I have already found my grave at this heritage site: The Duality of Industrial Heritage.”
Last in our block was Åsa Melin, Department of Political, Historical, Religious and Cultural Studies, Karlstad University. Here we learned how women acted in Bergslagen in the aftermath of the major steel crisis of the 1970s. Many interesting initiatives were presented from an environment characterized by male dominance and the so-called brukspirit (community tied to the ironworks).
We all received several questions from the audience. It is incredibly encouraging to converse and exchange experiences with others working in the field of heritage. Thus, we represented Chile, China (active in Finland), and Sweden.

Boris Cvitanic-Díaz from Universidad de Magallanes, Chile, spoke about how a factory has been transformed into a large tourist complex in Patagonia. Photo Maria Söderberg 

Kiruna City Hall is a building in central Kiruna called Kristallen. The new city hall was inaugurated on November 22, 2018 by King Carl XVI Gustaf and replaced the old city hall called Igloo. Photo Maria Söderberg

 

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