The inhabitants of Rjukan in southern Norway have a complex relationship with the sun. \u201cMore than other places I\u2019ve lived, they like to talk about the sun: when it\u2019s coming back, if it\u2019s a long time since they\u2019ve seen the sun,\u201d says artist Martin Andersen. \u201cThey\u2019re a little obsessed with it.\u201d Possibly, he speculates, it\u2019s because for approximately half the year, you can see the sunlight shining high up on the north wall of the valley: \u201cIt is very close, but you can\u2019t touch it,\u201d he says. As autumn wears on, the light moves higher up the wall each day, like a calendar marking off the dates to the winter solstice. And then as January, February and March progress, the sunlight slowly starts to inch its way back down again.<\/p>\n
Rjukan was built between 1905 and 1916, after an entrepreneur called Sam Eyde bought the local waterfall (known as the smoking waterfall) and constructed a hydroelectric power plant there. Factories producing artificial fertiliser followed. But the managers of these worried that their staff weren\u2019t getting enough sun \u2013 and eventually they\u00a0constructed a cable car<\/a>\u00a0in order to give them access to it.<\/p>\n When Martin moved to Rjukan in August 2002, he was simply looking for a temporary place to settle with his young family that was close to his parents\u2019 house and where he could earn some money. He was drawn to the three-dimensionality of the place: a town of 3,000, in the cleft between two towering mountains \u2013 the first seriously high ground you reach as you travel west of Oslo.<\/p>\nReference:<\/h4>\n
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