Andy Jones, Christina Fredengren, Hannah Sackett and Jonas Monié Nordin, Stockholm/Lund Figuring Nämforsen: Image, Friction and Relationality along the Ångerman River, Västernorrland.
 

ABSTRACT
How do different types of image-making forge different relationships with the world and how might they articulate and create relationships of care that can facilitate positive futures for the planet? This project explores this question through an examination of Nämforsen and the Ångerman River (Näsåker, Sollefteå kommun, Västernorrland County, Sweden), where the extensive prehistoric rock carvings of elk, boats, people, birds, fish and abstract images (carved between 6,000–3,800 years ago) were almost destroyed in the 1940s by the construction of Nämforsen Power Plant. The documenting of that rock art by Gustaf Hallström (1934 - 1939), and the intervention of the riksantikvarien (national antiquary) Sigurd C urman were decisive factors in the relocation of the planned power plant, which was built by Vattenfall between 1944 and 1947.

Nämforsen is viewed as a site of friction (Tsing 2005) in which the needs and priorities of the river, of the humans and more-than-humans that dwell in and around the river, of archaeology, heritage, tourism and industry have rubbed up against one another over time. These frictions are explored through specific processes of imaging (including prehistoric carving, archaeological survey, and contemporary art practice) that have formed and remade relationships at Nämforsen over the course of 6000 years, and through investigation into what these images include and what they have omitted and pushed aside.