Urban Arctic: Kirkenes and the Barents Postcards

Photographer and visual sociologist Victor Frankowski’s long-term project in Kirkenes creates an urban landscape filled with competing forces. The changing face of industry and the growing cultural capital of the area each have a role to play, as does the towns geographical characteristics and social history of migration and relocation.

Frankowski uses photography and digital media to document his work, allowing repeatable content to be created during his long-term project that will see him return to Kirkenes once every five years.

For the project Barents Postcards, Frankowski challenges the common perception of the arctic that is so readily understood by those living outside the region; that being, an area that is a desolate wilderness of picture-postcard nature, devoid of human habitation, development or heavy industry. With a set of unfamiliar postcard themes, the project attempts to shift attention from nature and wilderness to urbanity and industry.