"Where the impossible has become possible"

I have been looking further into Rjukan and how the town was able to solve the problem of darkness with mirrors. This idea relates to my initial research which focused on sadness and bleak grey days - this is an example of overcoming that - what to do to make things better

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24747720

Mirrors finally bring winter sun to Rjukan in Norway

The people of Rjukan in Norway are celebrating the installation of giant mirrors, which have finally brought winter sunshine to their town centre.

Rjukan lies in a deep valley, and during the six months of winter the surrounding mountains cast a shadow over the town even at midday.

About 1,000 people, among them children in sunglasses, cheered when the main square became bathed in sun.

The idea of using mirrors in Rjukan was first proposed 100 years ago.

Rjukan's inhabitants gathered in the main square on Wednesday for the official inauguration of the mirrors.

Some sipped cocktails on sun loungers, while others played beach volleyball on a makeshift sand court.

As the sun's reflected rays illuminated the town square, a band played the song Let the Sunshine In, while Rjukan's townspeople cheered, among them hundreds of children with yellow suns painted on their faces, some waving Norwegian flags.

"A hundred-year-old idea has become reality today," said Steinar Bergsland, mayor of the Tinn municipality which includes Rjukan.

He said he hoped the mirrors would attract visitors to the region, which up till now has been associated more with the bravery of the men who sabotaged Hitler's attempt to develop the atomic bomb at a hydroelectric plant near Rjukan.

The problem of how to bring sunshine to Rjukan was first considered a century ago by a Norwegian engineer and industrialist, Sam Eyde, who developed the town to provide workers for the power plant, which lies at the foot of a waterfall.

At the time, the technology did not exist to fulfil his vision to harness the rays of the winter sun.

Instead, a cable car was installed to bring Rjukan's inhabitants to the top of an adjacent mountain for a fix of winter sun.

The three mirrors, 17sq m each, were brought in by helicopter and placed on a mountain, about 450m above the centre of the town.

Controlled by computers, the tilted mirrors follow the course of the sun to bring sunshine to Rjukan's main square below.

Rjukan is a place "where the impossible has become possible" said Mr Bergsland."

Aerial shot of hundreds of people gathered in the main square in Rjukan for the official opening party

The three sun mirrors, set up on the mountainside above Rjukan, reflect sunlight down on the town square below

Teenagers play beach volleyball at the official opening of the mirrors in Rjukan

Inhabitants of Rjukan gather for the official inauguration of the sun mirrors

The three giant mirrors erected on the mountainside above Rjukan

I am finding Rjukan's story really fascinating - the idea is so clever and the concept is really helping me think of pictures - light beams running through pages - small buildings - crowds of people - double page spread - tall mountains. I think this is the idea I need to do more work on - drawings of scenes from rjukan - book could be journey of light through town

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/rjukan-sun-norway-town-mirrors

"What it was, I think," he says, "is that living in the shade must make you afraid to dream of the sun. That's the only way I can explain the resistance: like the valley walls, minds without sun become somehow a little bit narrower."

But is the Solspeil, as it was at least originally conceived, art? "The people here don't see it that way," says Daniel Paida Larsen, a Rjukan-born, Berlin-based artist and close friend of Andersen's. "They see it – and, thankfully, now welcome it – as a technical project. Or a marketing tool."

But the sun mirror, nonetheless, is art, he says. "I don't know how exactly I'd define it," Larsen says. "An installation? A sculpture? It makes me think about how we need the sun, what happens to light when you reflect it. But what's really special is that it goes so deep into the public sphere. It touches something absolutely fundamental in this town."

At high school in Rjukan, Larsen remembers "walking down the street and looking up and seeing sunshine and blue sky and thinking: why can't I be there?" In the end, he says, "the only way to cope is to ignore that. To survive here in winter, you have to ignore the possibility of the sun."

But no longer. Now there's the Solspeil. "A work of art," Larsen says, "with a real, vital function, fulfilling a basic need in people's lives." Down on the square, Ingunn Sparbo might not put it in quite those terms, but she can't agree more.

"Look at this!" she says, almost beside herself. "Who'd have thought it? I've stepped out to get a bit of sun."