Persistent Memories : Pyramiden - a Soviet Mining Town in the High Arctic

Andreassen, Elin (PHT); Bjerck, Hein B. (PHT); Olsen, Bjornar (PHT)

ISBN 10: 8251924367 / ISBN 13: 9788251924368

Published by Fagbokforlaget, 2010

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 11778592-n

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Persistent Memories : Pyramiden - a Soviet Mining Town in the High Arctic
• Publisher: Fagbokforlaget
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8251924367
• ISBN 13: 9788251924368
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In 1998, the Russian Arctic Coal Company decided to end more than 50 years of continuous activity in Pyramiden, in the High Arctic archipelago of Norwegian Svalbard. The remarkably abrupt abandonment left behind a mining town devoid of humans, but it was still filled with items constituting a modern industrial settlement. Today, the well-equipped Pyramiden survives as a conspicuous Soviet-era ghost town in pristine Arctic nature. Based on fieldwork studies, Persistent Memories examines how people lived and coped in this marginal town. The book is also concerned with Pyramiden's post-human biography and the way the site provokes more general reflections on possessions, heritage, and memory. Challenging the traditional scholarly hierarchy of text over images, this book stands out by using art photography as a means to address these issues and to mediate the contemporary archaeology of Pyramiden.