We conducted a Peacepainting workshop in Rjukan, Tinn municipality on Saturday 15th of January 2022.
About Rjukan
Rjukan is a town in Tinn municipality with 3000 inhabitants and is a very interesting place with many original elements. In the early 1900s, Norsk Hydro built Rjukan at a record speed and within only a few years, large industrial plants for the production of electric power and fertilizers were built to supply the world market. Rjukanfossen was also tamed in the process.
The Sun Mirror
Rjukan is located in a narrow valley, the mighty Gaustatoppen (1883 m) and the other steep mountains around the valley make Rjukan sunless from October to March every year. Over a hundred years ago, Oscar Kittelsen and Sam Eyde launched the idea of bringing the sun down to the people of Rjukan using a sun mirror high up in the hillside that would reflect sun beams down to Rjukan. Many have heard of this fascinating idea and its implementation and media from all over the world have written about this fun initiative. It was realized by Martin Andersen in 2013.
During the visit, we also met with Martin Andersen. He has a café where we might create Peacepainting workshops in the future.
In this café, owned by Martin Andersen (in the background), Peacepainting might have an exhibition during 2022.
Rjukan (Credit: Olav Gjerstad/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)
The Sun Mirror in Rjukan. Credit: Visittelemark
Peacepainting in Rjukan
Rune Francisco Fauske who comes from Tinn municipality, but also occasionally lives in Lofoten, attended a Peacepainting Instructor course in Bindal in the autumn of 2020. The pandemic put an end to the Peacepainting workshops we were planning to hold for children and young people together. But now we are up and running again, albeit a little cautious with fewer participants than normal.
Catrine and Rune were originally only to meet to plan various activities for children and young people. But, thanks to Rune’s quick turnaround and the hospitality of many in the municipality, we also managed to get a workshop in place. It was held on Saturday the 15th of January at the Cinema Gallery in Rjukan.
We invited the mayor Steinar Bergsland and others to come and see how we worked. We believe it is important to experience Peacepainting workshops in person, as the concept is not always so simple to convey in writing or orally. We were very happy for the mayor’s visit, and based on his response, this is a way of working with children and young people that he was very positive about. Read the newspaper article about the event here.
The Peacepainting Workshop at Cinema Gallery, 15th of January
In total 9 children and adults attended the workshop. We started the workshop with an inspiration session, like we always do. In this part of the workshop, we create an emphasis on equality across beliefs and world views as a way of tuning the participants for the next phase. In this following phase, participants paint intuitively using high quality materials, using both wide and narrow brushes.
Then the workshop continued according to our well-established method, which is simple but very comprehensive. For example, we put emphasis on the concept Re -spect which, if you look closely, means to look again, re-spect. This is what we do in the workshops, via paintings, texts and mutual responses in an effort to expand consciousness for both participants and instructors. That is what is so special about our workshops. Everyone in the room becomes equal in both giving and receiving feedback, which in turn creates new knowledge and new perspectives on life, which in turn inspires us to move forward in our lives with curiosity.
The paintings created at this workshop will be exhibited at Tinn City Hall.