Walking on Rivers (Finland, 2013-ongoing)
In the town of Pudasjärvi in central Finland there are more reindeer than people. An aging population and the departure of young people for the cities means that the number of residents has fallen sharply. That has caused the town to set an unusual goal for itself: by 2018 one out of ever ten residents must be an immigrant. In her series Walking on Rivers Laura Böök follows the Congolese families who, after having lived more than fifteen years in refugee camps, have now settled in Pudasjärvi. At the same time she follows the town’s transition, as it wrestles with redefining its identity.
