Litte ja Goabddá

Litte ja Goabddá is a video installation with surround sound that explores the use of drone technologies as a tool of minority indigenous resistance to the proposed Gállak mining operations in Jåhkåmåhkke [Jokkmokk], Norrbotten County, Sweden. The project was developed in close collaboration with activists and Sámi families living and working in the area, combining extensive fieldwork and visual documentation.
The Sámi are an indigenous minority whose traditional ancestral land of Sápmi crosses the modern nation states of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. The systematic subdivision, expropriation and industrialisation of Sápmi has resulted in the dispossession of historical indigenous lands, and in the fragmentation of Sámi cultural belonging and identities.
Gállak North is one of the largest unexploited iron ore deposits in Europe. The UK-based Beowulf Mining PLC, through its Swedish subsidiary Jokkmokk Iron Mines AB, has submitted an application for a twenty-five-year exploitation concession to establish a mine at the site. Their application is currently under review by the Swedish Government. If a mining permit were granted it would have a massive impact on the area’s fragile ecology, and would cause further disruption to the reindeer migration paths. If the mine goes ahead, Sámi cultural life in the area would experience irreversible decline and with it the loss of valuable indigenous knowledge.
Drone technologies have, for the most part, been associated with ideas of vertical control, surveillance and warfare, and have been perceived as a technology that extends corporate and military power. At the same time, because of the drone’s capacity to generate accurate image-based mapping and analytics, drones are also used by the mining industry to increase efficiency and profitability. By artistically appropriating this technology, I attempt to offer new ways of seeing how the geographies of ecological social movements are connected across time and place.
Litte ja Goabddá explores how the drone view and the drum manifest and reconcile the technological and the spiritual in counter-protests against settler colonial deforestation and extractive industries. During several research trips, he met with activists and Sámi families living and working in the area threatened by mining activities. From the beginning of the project, he became interested in finding ways to collaborate with these communities. His initial idea was to bring drones to Gállak so as to monitor Beowulf Mining. On his first visit, he met with the activists Mose Agestam and Henrik Blind who were already using drones as a tool to make visible from above what is happening at ground level. Communicating across social media platforms, their drone films make evident the disruption of Sápmi land, mapping not only its scale but also the commodification and financialisation of the land as private property and a source of capital.