At the Limits of Reliable Information: Finland's Arctic Borders with Sweden, Norway and Russia

This paper considers the photographic image, not as the evidential trace of a landscape or of an history, but as an artefact that appears to offer certainty whilst evading a definitive reading. The specific terrains covered in the paper are those remote landscapes along Finland’s arctic borders with Sweden and Norway, and its more controlled border with Russia. These wilderness regions – or desarts as they were deemed to be by many early travellers – are set at the limits of cultural boundaries and of commercial productivity (hence the appellation, desarts). To photograph in such environments is itself to be placed, ‘At the Limit of Reliable Information’, and the ensuing images, we would argue, mirror that state. This paper takes the form of three visits to key border sites: 1) The Tornio River, just south of the Arctic Circle – the focus of the 18th century mathematician, de Maupertuis’, research into the curvature of the earth – that provides the border-line between Finland and Sweden. 2) The north-western arctic lake area and fell region of Kilpisjärvi and Saana Fell – an area sacred to the indigenous Sámi people – where the Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish borders meet. 3) The only sanctioned border crossing between Finland and Russia in the Arctic Circle known as, Raja-Jooseppi (Joseph’s Border). Through a sequential discussion of the characteristics and historical relevance of each of the three sites, this paper will consider both the contrasting inscriptions placed upon such remote landscapes, and their palimpsest-like nature. In the light of contemporary theories regarding representation and the photographic image, this paper will also suggest that the emerging images from such journeys are not simply the depictions of sites or places (documents) but that they become the poetic embodiments of the wilderness they represent