TICCIH Conference 2025 in Kiruna/Schweden

The next TICCIH Congress will be held in the mining town Kiruna in northernmost Sweden, August 25 – 30, 2025. The title of the congress is “Heritage in action: Legacies of industry in future making” and will focus on tensions and controversies surrounding industrial heritage and its relation to wider tensions in present day society. Themes will range from issues regarding sustainability, inclusion and colonialism to future generations, popular culture and AI.

The congress location is Kiruna, a small town in the Swedish Arctic, with a rich industrial history. The town was officially established the year 1900 as part of large project to extract vast iron mineralization’s in the region. However, people have inhabited the region for thousands of years. Steel making based on bog-ores in the area dates back 2000 years, while mining and early modern metals production dates back to the 17th century. The mine in Kiruna is still in operation and is the largest underground Iron ore mine in the world. The town and the region is also subject to a new wave of industrialization including rare earth elements mining and the production of Co2 free steel. This development takes place in lands where industry compete with traditional land uses of indigenous people and national minorities, such as Saami reindeer herders and Tornedalians, which causes growing tensions about land use and the future. 

There will be several pre- and post-congress excursions offered at varying cost to choose from. Pre-congress excursions include visits to the Arctic Mine Fields and Hydroelectric Plants of Northernmost Sweden, the Center of the Green Industrial Transition in Sweden, and The Mid-Swedish Mining District Bergslagen. Post-congress excursions include visits to the Torne River Valley, an Oil-rig in Stavanger, the Röros Copper Mine, and Svalbard.

The 19th TICCIH Congress in Kiruna is organized by Luleå University of Technology, a leading university in the European Arctic, in collaboration with the TICCIH sections in Sweden and Norway, the Swedish National Heritage Board, the municipality of Kiruna and a range of leading actors within industry and civil society in the Scandinavian north.

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

DEADLINE: 31 January 2025

TICCIH – the International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage – is hereby inviting you to its 19th congress under the theme “Heritage in action: Legacies of industry in future making” in Kiruna, August 25 – 30, 2025. We invite interested researchers and practitioners to submit proposals for conference papers.

THE THEME

The TICCIH 2025 congress focuses on tensions and controversies surrounding industrial heritage and its relation to wider tensions in present day society. It explores how we think about the past and about the future in the present, and how we construct historical narratives to connect the two, attach them to built environments and artefacts, in order to get where we want to go. It is a theme that addresses key global issues connected to the UN sustainability goals, and the goal conflicts emerging between them, but also pathways to bridging tensions through heritage. The theme also includes the issue of how we can work with contemporary industries as heritage and the heritage of the future.

In addition to the overall theme there are eleven subthemes, ten thematic and one open.

Choose one of the subthemes based on what suits your paper best:

1. Industrial Heritage and Traces of Colonialism
2. Heritage in Motion in Time and Space
3. Industrial Heritage and a Sustainable Future
4. Who’s Heritage – Inclusion or Exclusion?
5. Post Industrial Heritage – For Whom?
6. Action For a New Generation
7. Industrial Heritage in Popular Culture – Dystopias or utopias.
8. Heritage at Risk
9. AI – Friend or Foe?
10. Nominating and Managing industrial World Heritage Sites
11. Open Themes

You can also choose to attach your presentation to one of the submitted sessions (you are required to do so if you are already part of a submitted session). This is optional. If you do not choose a specific session you will, if accepted, be placed in as session in one of the subthemes presented above. If you want to participate in a specific session, please choose the session name in the designated box when you submit your paper. Just follow the instructions, it is done in the end of the submission.

You find the submitted session proposals here.

Zur Kongress-Website