LEAVE NO TRACE – David Scheffler

UHD-Video, 2160p, 16:9 (1,78:1), 5.1 Surround Sound | 61 minutes and 15 seconds | english, german, dutch, norwegian | with english subtitles | full production time period from 2023 to 2026
NOR / DE 2026

Concept, camera and sound work, post-production by David Scheffler
Produced and financed by Lavangsnes Wunderkammer

Participating artists from the IPIHAN group:

Michiel Jansen, Ties Ten Bosch, Pim Palsgraaf, Esther Kokmeijer, Guus Vreeburg, Willem Besselink, Maurice Bogaert, Torbjörn Johansson, Hilde Angel Danielsen, Siri Tolander, Jens Stegger Ledaal, Jan Hakon Erichsen, Lada Suomenrinne

In 2023, the artist group IPIHAN was invited by the Salangen Biennale II to Sjøvegan in Norway.
The project took place around the remains of the old iron ore mine „Salangsverket“ on the Salangen Fjord in northern Norway—a place with a rich history in the midst of a unique Arctic landscape.
For five weeks, the 13 participants from Scandinavia and the Netherlands lived in an old factory ruin. They explored the surrounding area and the traces of the old cable car, the remains of the mine on the 600-meter-high Størhaugen mountain, and created site-specific works.
These were presented in the „Salangen Biennale II“ exhibition during the last week of their stay.

David Scheffler accompanied the artists throughout the entire period. The resulting documentary film, which avoids conventional narration by a narrator, observes the artistic creation in a field of tension between proportions with a calm narrative style; the enormous backdrop and the artists‘ works that respond to it.

Director’s Statement

Work has always been a central subject of my film practice. I am interested in the people who work, in the processes they are engaged in, and in the social conditions and meanings
revealed through work itself.
Making a film about artistic practice offered me a particular opportunity. As an artist myself, I know something about the processes, decisions and uncertainties that remain invisible behind a finished work. I wanted to use film to make these processes visible.
For five weeks, the artists lived and worked together in the ruins of Salangsverket. Making art was inseparable from making the place habitable: building, cooking, discussing, experimenting, failing and starting again. The search for a form was something concrete
and lived, rather than something removed from everyday life.
But the ruins were not simply an empty space to work in. They carry a history that remains meaningful to the people living around them. The site stretched from the main works by the fjord, where the artists lived, up to Storhaugen, rising 600 metres above sea level, where the ore was once extracted. Although the industrial use of the site lies far in the past, I learned from local residents that Salangsverket remains an important symbol for the people of the
area and is still close to their hearts. For many of the artists, engaging with the site and its history became a guiding principle and starting point for their work.
I wanted the film to reflect this complexity. Rather than explaining the artists’ work from the outside, I stayed close to their processes, conversations and everyday lives. The film is an attempt to take art off its pedestal while remaining attentive to the place in which it happens — a place that already has its own stories to tell.
In late 2024, an early version of the film was presented in Sjøvegan, in Salangen municipality, under the title Salangen Biennale 2023. At that point, it was presented as a documentation of the biennale. Following conversations around the screening, I returned to the edit and made a number of changes.
In 2026, the film received its own title, LEAVE NO TRACE, marking its development into an independent film beyond the context of the biennale.

FULL CREDITS

LEAVE NO TRACE
A FILM BY DAVID SCHEFFLER

FILM PRODUCTION
SELMA KÖCHLING · VIDAR LAKSFORS

CINEMATOGRAPHY · SOUND ENGINEERING · EDITING · MUSIC & SOUND DESIGN
DAVID SCHEFFLER

SOUND MIX & SOUND MASTERING
JOHANNES PHILLIPP

IF PARADISE IS HALF AS NICE · #13 — PARTICIPANTS

Esther Kokmeijer · Guus Vreeburg · Hilde Angel Danielsen · Jan Hakon Erichsen ·
Jens Stegger Ledaal · Lada Suomenrinne · Maurice Bogaert · Michiel Jansen · Pim Palsgraaf ·
Siri Tolander · Torbjörn Johanson · Ties Ten Bosch · Willem Besselink

PRODUCERS & INITIATORS
Selma Köchling · Vidar Laksfors · Markus Richter

WITH KIND SUPPORT BY
Sabrina van der Ley

WITH THANKS TO THE OTHER CONTRIBUTORS OF THE SALANGEN BIENNALE 2023

Ragnhild Fjeldstad · Paulius Velkas · Malin Tverseth · Frode Hansen · Daniela Hedman · Regina Kelaita · Harald Hardersen · Jan-Iver Trones · Marija Griniuk · Kristoffer Dolmen · André Dekker · Simon Løvhaug · Salangen Kommune

SPECIAL THANKS
To the local shops and businesses in Salangen.