Image: Kin Museum of Contemporary Art, Stockholm
The exhibition ‘Bruket av fotografi: Borg Mesch och Hans-Olof Utsi’ is on Plan 3 from 16 April to 18 October 2026. Its core is approximately 60 photographs by Borg Mesch, whose images depict Kiruna’s first decades, the construction of the railway to the Atlantic coast, the northern landscape and the Sámi Indigenous population.
Mesch photographed railway workers, often in group portraits that required only one photographic plate while generating many commissions, as well as tourists, Kiruna’s growing population and Sámi people. Among his recurring clients were LKAB and the Swedish Tourist Association.
The Kiruna-based photographer Hans-Olof Utsi has documented how Mesch’s photographs are used in the city, including on the façade of a swimming bath, in hotel lobbies and in care homes. The exhibition addresses differences in technique, scale and framing that indicate how Mesch’s images have been used during different periods and in different settings.
The exhibition also examines how photographs function as historical documents and as aesthetic objects.
