Luleåbiennalen 2020 | Mining Banners of the North

Luleå Biennial 2020:
Time on Earth
21.11.2020~14.2.2020

Information regarding Covid-19

Last chance The Luleå Biennial 2020: Time on Earth

Wednesday February 10, 16~20 and Saturday February 13–Sunday February 14, 12~16
Galleri Syster is open. Group show with Augusta Strömberg, Susanna Jablonski and Ana Vaz.

Thursday February 11–Sunday February 14, 12~16
Havremagasinet länskonsthall in Bodenis open. Group show with Beatrice Gibson, Susanna Jablonski, Birgitta Linhart, Fathia Mohidin, Charlotte Posenenske, Tommy Tommie and Danae Valenza.

Saturday February 13–Sunday February 14, 14~18
The former prison Vita Duvan is open with an electro acoustic installation by Maria W Horn.

Saturday February 13, 15~19
The artist Markus Öhrn and the poet David Väyrynens sound installation "Bikt" is exhibited on the ice by Residensgatan in Luleå. Listen to older generations of Tornedal women and their testimonies.

Book your visit via Billetto. Drop in is possible as far as space allows.

For those of you who do not have the opportunity to physically visit the Luleå Biennale on site, a radio show including artist talks, sound works and specially written essays will be on stream on Saturday February 13–Sunday February 14. Visit our radio page here.

The exhibitions at Norrbotten's Museum, Luleå konsthall, Välkommaskolan in Malmberget and the Silver Museum are unfortunatly closed.

2018~2021

Mining Banners of the North
Margareta Ståhl

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Luossavara-Kirunavara Workers’ Union – the organisation that eventually became the Miners' Confederation’s 12th Division – was formed in 1900 and, after two years of operation, acquired this banner, which is probably the inaugural emblem of their association. Previously, they had a demonstration banner with the association's name and foundation date.

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The Swedish Mining Industry Workers' Union's 4th Division in Malmberget acquired this banner in 1933, decorated by the banner-painter Johan Adolf Hellberg (1871–1935) in Torshälla. Their first banner was inaugurated already in 1897, but was lost in the great Folkets Hus fire in Malmberget in 1953.

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The 80th Division of the The Swedish Electricians’ Federation in Malmberget first flew this banner in 1954. On the red cloth, local symbolism is paired with the lighting rod associated with the trade. The nearby mountain Dundret is pictured with the emblem of the federation above. Its backside bears the dictum “Organisation is Power” over a hand holding a torch with a sunrise in the background. The banner is made at Lindblad’s flag studio in Örebro.

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The 80th Division of the The Swedish Electricians’ Federation in Malmberget first flew this banner in 1954. On the red cloth, local symbolism is paired with the lighting rod associated with the trade. The nearby mountain Dundret is pictured with the emblem of the federation above. Its backside bears the dictum “Organisation is Power” over a hand holding a torch with a sunrise in the background. The banner is made at Lindblad’s flag studio in Örebro.

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The Miners' Union’s 40th division in Svartöstaden, whose members work in Luleå’s ore harbour, introduced its ensign one week before the first of May in 1908. It shows a mining carriage framed by a wreath of oak leaves. The adages on the back read “Unity gives Strength” and “Proletarians Unite” in a circle around the earth.

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The Miners' Union’s 40th division in Svartöstaden, whose members work in Luleå’s ore harbour, introduced its ensign one week before the first of May in 1908. It shows a mining carriage framed by a wreath of oak leaves. The adages on the back read “Unity gives Strength” and “Proletarians Unite” in a circle around the earth.

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The researcher Margareta Ståhl has made a summary of banners from the turn of the century, which are filed in various departments belonging to Gruvarbetarförbundet (the Miners' Confederation). The text closely resembles an inventory, something that Margareta Ståhl spent many decades devoted to at the Swedish Labour Movement’s Archive and Library. She is Sweden's premier banner expert.

Read more in ”Vår enighets fana: ett sekel av fackliga fanor” (1998), LO, 1998, and “Vår fana röd till färgen: fanor som medium för visuell kommunikation under arbetarrörelsens genombrottstid i Sverige fram till 1890” (1999), Linköping: University of Linköping, 1999.

2020

Radio 65.22 is an auditory cross section of the biennial’s theme and contents, which amplifies and makes accessible written texts, framed situations and artistic voices. Radio 65.22 also enables an encounter with chosen parts of the Luleå Biennial’s activities for those who cannot experience the biennial in situ.

With Radio 65.22, we want to inscribe ourselves into an experimental and exploratory radio tradition, where the media itself becomes a platform for our ideas on radio and its capacity to depict and mirror the world around us. The task of Radio 65.22 is to tell of reality, in further ways that may not be possible through the image or the text.

Under Fragments: Time on Earth you will find radio programmes and sound pieces in different genres and forms that reflect this year’s biennial in various ways. Spirit of Place is a touring series of literary conversations on language and place. The culture journalist Kerstin Wixe takes us along to places that have played a significant part in an author’s stories, or carries the story’s history. Woven Songs is a deepening series of radio programmes that accentuate singing, the voice and the role of storytelling in the creation of new world views and orders, produced in collaboration with Public Art Agency Sweden.

Listen, reflect, enjoy!