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Rjukan Solarpunk Academy emerged within the landscape of the Rjukan–Notodden Industrial Heritage Site, inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2015. Around the same time, UNESCO expanded its recognition of cultural heritage beyond monuments and historic sites. In 2016, Yoga was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, recognising knowledge, practice and living traditions as forms of heritage in their own right.

Although these two forms of heritage may appear very different, they share a common challenge:

How do we keep heritage alive?

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For Rjukan Solarpunk Academy, this question has gradually become central. Through projects such as Solarpunk Campus, Kunstnerleden and a growing network of artists, researchers and local initiatives, we have explored how heritage can function as a platform for imagination and future-making.

At the same time, a growing body of international research points towards the need for new forms of cooperation capable of addressing inequality, ecological overshoot and questions of global justice. The Global Justice Project has become an important reference point in this conversation, exploring pathways towards good lives for all within planetary boundaries.

Trust in Humanity grows from the intersection of these conversations.

Developed through a collaboration between Tourist Trust in Agra, India, and Rjukan Solarpunk Academy in Norway, the initiative explores how cultural exchange, artistic practice, traditional knowledge and contemporary research can contribute to a more reciprocal understanding of sustainable futures.

The choice of Agra is not accidental. Home to one of the world's most visited cultural landmarks, the Taj Mahal, the city also exists within a rapidly changing social and ecological landscape that reflects many of the challenges facing the twenty-first century.

Trust in Humanity therefore asks a simple question:

What forms of knowledge, relationship and cooperation become possible when heritage is understood not only as something we inherit, but as something we actively create together?

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SOLARPUNK IN RESIDENCE 2026: 

JAIVEER SHARMA

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The arrival of Jaiveer Sharma at Rjukan Solarpunk Academy opens a conversation about some of the deeper intellectual and cultural roots of Solarpunk itself.

While the term “Solarpunk” is relatively recent, many of the values associated with it — stewardship, sufficiency, community, participation and meaningful relationships between humans and nature — have much older histories.

In Norway, thinkers such as Arne Næss, Sigmund Kvaløy Sætreng and Nils Faarlund have influenced generations of artists, environmentalists and educators through ecological philosophy and a lifelong exploration of humanity’s relationship with the living world. Less frequently acknowledged is how encounters with Himalayan landscapes, traditions and ways of life contributed to the development of these ideas.

Today, ecological philosophy itself can be understood as a form of living cultural heritage: a continuing conversation about what constitutes a good life, how humans relate to the more-than-human world, and how societies might flourish within ecological limits.

Jaiveer Sharma is a certified yoga teacher trained in Rishikesh, India. He grew up in North India and was educated by a Himalayan teacher before spending decades working across tourism, community organising, drivers’ rights, farming and entrepreneurship.

His life experience has been shaped by many of the same cultural and philosophical landscapes that inspired parts of the Scandinavian ecological tradition.

His residency therefore creates an opportunity for dialogue — about different ways of understanding community, wellbeing, resilience and the relationship between people and the more-than-human world.

In this sense, Jaiveer’s contribution extends beyond cultural exchange. It also invites reflection on how knowledge traditions, practices and ways of living are transmitted across generations and across cultures, shaping the intellectual foundations of movements that continue to influence contemporary discussions about ecology, sustainability and social transformation.

For Rjukan Solarpunk Academy, this feels less like introducing something new and more like continuing a conversation that has been unfolding for generations.

Seen from this perspective, Trust in Humanity is not only a cultural exchange project. It is also an exploration of how living heritage — whether expressed through industrial landscapes, ecological philosophy, artistic practice or traditions such as Yoga — can contribute to new conversations about global justice, planetary boundaries and the futures we are capable of imagining together.

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RESIDENCY PROGRAMME 2026

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From 15 July to 8 October 2026, Jaiveer Sharma is Solarpunk in Residence at Rjukan Solarpunk Academy.

The residency was deliberately conceived as a period for development rather than the presentation of a finished project: creating time for concept development, partnership building, organisational planning and funding strategy, while connecting Jaiveer’s networks and experience in India with artistic, academic, civil-society and community networks in Norway.

During the residency, the Trust in Humanity collaboration has developed in a new and more concrete direction:

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THE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATIVE SOCIETY

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The International Cooperative Society is being developed around a simple question:

How can the people who create value through their work, knowledge and skills connect more directly with the people who value what they create?

The emerging network brings together perspectives from tourism, farming, artisanship, education, yoga and cultural exchange.

The first cooperative pilot is being developed in Uttar Pradesh, India, initially using tourism as a connecting infrastructure.

Tourism already connects many different people: drivers and guides, artisans and farmers, accommodation providers and cooks, yoga practitioners, small businesses, local communities and travellers.

The project is exploring how cooperative organisation and shared digital infrastructure could create more direct relationships between them — allowing a greater share of the economic value generated through tourism, trade, teaching and other services to remain with the people actually doing the work.

An artisan might meet visitors in their workshop, sell their work directly or teach an online class. A farmer might connect farming with farm stays, food and knowledge exchange. Yoga practitioners could teach locally and internationally. Drivers and guides could connect more directly with travellers.

Rather than developing these as separate projects, the International Cooperative Society asks whether they can become connected parts of a wider cooperative infrastructure.

The ambition is not simply to build another commercial platform. It is to develop structures through which people can work, earn, learn, exchange knowledge and gradually participate in shaping and owning the systems connecting them.

The model is still being developed. Questions concerning cooperative legislation, NGO structures, governance, international collaboration, funding and the digital platform are being researched during autumn 2026 together with collaborators in India and Norway.

The structure we begin with does not have to be the structure we end with.

The intention is to begin with what already exists — people, knowledge, skills, organisations and relationships — and build from there.

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INDIA ↔ RJUKAN

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The residency has also opened a longer-term question about what role Rjukan might play within this emerging international network.

Rjukan Solarpunk Academy is exploring the development of a reciprocal residency and cultural-exchange programme through which people connected to the International Cooperative Society — artists, artisans, farmers, educators, researchers, filmmakers, yoga practitioners and cooperative organisers — could spend periods working in Rjukan.

In India, a corresponding programme is being explored in collaboration with Tourist Trust, Bal Bhavan and the emerging cooperative network.

The intention is not to create exchange in only one direction.

Knowledge should be able to travel between India and Norway, between different professions and generations, and between academic, artistic and practical forms of knowledge.

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FREE YOGA AT RJUKAN VARELAGER

One small part of this exchange is already happening in Rjukan.

During September, Jaiveer Sharma is offering free morning yoga for beginners at Rjukan Varelager, in collaboration with Rjukan Solarpunk Academy and Stage Door Talentutvikling.

Monday–Friday
07.10–08.30
7–25 September 2026
Rjukan Varelager

Everyone is welcome, including complete beginners.

Jaiveer is a certified yoga teacher trained in Rishikesh, India. Yoga is also one of the knowledge traditions being explored within the emerging International Cooperative Society: as a living practice, as a potential livelihood for practitioners and teachers, and as one of many forms of knowledge that can travel between people without losing its connection to those who carry it.

The morning sessions are also an opportunity to meet Jaiveer while the project is being developed.

If you are curious about the International Cooperative Society, India, yoga, cooperative structures or cultural exchange — or simply want to join us for morning practice — come by.

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THE “VENDEPUNKT” CONVERSATION

The residency coincides with the Norwegian government’s ongoing Vendepunkt process, an initiative exploring future directions for Norwegian development policy through dialogue with civil society, researchers, organisations and international partners.

Many of the themes raised through Vendepunkt resonate with questions being explored through Trust in Humanity and the International Cooperative Society: local knowledge, long-term partnerships, cultural exchange, global justice and new forms of international cooperation in a rapidly changing world.

Through conversations, artistic practice and collaborative reflection, the residency contributes experiences and perspectives that may be relevant to these broader discussions.

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ELVELANGS MÅNA

During September, Jaiveer Sharma will also contribute to Elvelangs Måna in Rjukan.

The event provides another local meeting point during the residency — bringing the developing India–Rjukan collaboration into Rjukan’s public and cultural life.

Jaiveer’s contribution connects to the wider residency through food, hospitality, conversation and exchange, and offers another informal opportunity to encounter some of the ideas and relationships being developed through Trust in Humanity and the International Cooperative Society.

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MOMENTS OF BLACKOUT

Jaiveer Sharma will participate in the group exhibition MOMENTS OF BLACKOUT at KRAFT in Bergen through the project FULL POWER CAFÉ.

Developed in dialogue with Rjukan Solarpunk Academy, FULL POWER CAFÉ explores energy in its many forms: as infrastructure, as social organisation, as ecological relationship and as lived human experience.

The participation at KRAFT extends the residency beyond Rjukan, connecting the emerging work around Trust in Humanity and the International Cooperative Society with an artistic context and wider conversations around energy, resources, social organisation and possible futures.

This is still the beginning.

The International Cooperative Society is being developed through people, organisations, knowledge and relationships that already exist. The residency in Rjukan is one place in which these connections are being brought together, tested and developed — before the work continues in India and through a growing international network.

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