Norway is currently facing major challenges. Outlying districts are being depopulated while the country’s oil will one day be exhausted. We need new solutions to provide versatile industrial foundations and sustainable future development.

The project “Ardent Spirits” explores idealism and creativity, focusing on individuals with a passion for their ideas and initiatives as the bedrock of sustainable development. We have selected twenty-five such idealists from around Norway. All combine innovation and profitability with a strong desire to contribute to a new, green and sustainable future.

Farmer and engineer Svein Lilleengen from Ørland municipality in Sør- Trøndelag produces biogas from cattle manure. The biogas facility can supply cars and ferries with fuel, greenhouses with CO2, and agriculture and forestry with ecological fertilizer that simultaneously protect the harvest against pests.

For us, idealists such as Lilleengen are a vital prerequisite for sustainable local development. In the experimental regional plan for Brekstad, the community closest to Lilleengen’s farm, we used the local biogas manufacturer as a catalyst enterprise. Svein Lilleengen’s farm is transformed into the hub for a network of existing resources and structures. Local operators, politicians, businesses, organisations and consultants all contribute to a creative collaboration. In this way, local idealists and their projects are able to guide the community towards sustainable solutions and contribute to positive economic development in the area.

This exhibition is not the conclusion of a project. “Ardent spirits” is an ongoing process and only the beginning of a local development aimed at the future.

Team: Reinhard Kropf, Alex Sandulescu, Elise Junge