Sub Astra
Sub Astra is a meditative experience of video, images, sound, live music, text and interactive parts.

Madelaine Sillfors (b. 1982, Kiruna), Kenneth Hansson-Tornéus (b. 1978, Jukkasjärvi) and Daniel Westman (b. 1986, Långshyttan) are based in Umeå. Madelaine and Kenneth grew up in Kiruna and have been working together with Daniel to develop the piece Sub Astra (2023), in an open call for Bildmuseet, Umeå. Last year they went on a research trip together to record sound in the old and the new parts of Kiruna, a town in the very north of Sweden, currently being torn down and moved due to the mining of iron ore in the city.

The soundscapes are a mixture of sounds recorded with various microphones in the new and the old city, from parts that meant a lot for us growing up. Houses and whole parts of the city are being torn down, erased, and what will be left is a ‘nature’, fenced off, forbidden to enter. There is a sadness hard to gather. We are trying to understand the consequences of these changes, places will cease to exist, other than in our body memories. The sound of the explosions in the mine as heard from different parts of the city is also recorded, also there are sounds from the mountain village of Abisko, the lake Torneträsk and the lake Rissájávri/Trollsjön. 

The work reflects complex emotions connected to the profound transformation that their home town Kiruna is undergoing. The expansion of the Kiruna iron ore mine is making the land unstable and so the whole town is being relocated to allow further exploitation of the precious natural resources that lie below its’ old streets.

Special thanks to Bildmuseet Umeå who supported the original development of the piece