Posts Tagged Famous locals
Norway’s most talented rally driver
Posted by admin in Photos and videos, Sport on September 25, 2010
Famous locals: Petter Solberg
Born in Askim, Østfold, in 1974, Petter Solberg is Norway’s most successful rally driver ever. Solberg debuted in the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 1998, and became the first Norwegian to win the drivers’ world title in 2003. Solberg also finished runner-up in the WRC to Marcus Grönholm (of Finland) in 2002, and in 2004 and 2005 to Sébastien Loeb (of France). All in all he has 13 individual world rally wins behind him (his first victory was at Rally GB in 2002).
His successful partnership with the Subaru World Rally Team came to an end with Subaru’s withdrawal from the WRC at the end of the 2008 season. Solberg has since been competing with his own privately-funded Petter Solberg World Rally Team – he finished the season fifth last year, and is currently ranked fourth in the WRC 2010.
Solberg is also famous for his peculiar use of English, where he often literally translates Norwegian idioms and expressions into English. This, along with his amiable and enthusiastic (some would say extravagant) personality and his obvious talent as a rally driver, has not just endeared him to the Norwegian public, but also made him a very popular sporting figure abroad.
More info, in English, at www.pettersolberg.com
Norway’s premiere on 23 July in Fredrikstad
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature on July 5, 2010
The Karate Kid, by film director Harald Zwart.
Famous locals: Harald Zwart
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature on July 5, 2010
Harald Zwart is a Norwegian film director, born in Holland in 1965, who grew up in Fredrikstad, Østfold. He started directing short films, music videos (including a couple for A-Ha) and commercials, before moving on to feature-length movies. He has since achieved a degree of success in Hollywood, where he is now based, with films such as One Night at McCool’s (starring Liv Tyler, Matt Dillon, John Goodman and Michael Douglas) and The Pink Panther 2, with big names such as Steve Martin, Jean Reno and Andy García.
In Norway he is more famous for directing Lange Flate Ballær, a film about football fans in his hometown of Fredrikstad, which was a big hit at the box office, and its sequel, Lange Flate Ballær 2, about a group of Norwegian misfits who undergo a week of National Guard training. Zwart’s latest film, The Karate Kid, a remake of the 1984 movie of the same name, tells the story of a young boy from Detroit who moves to China with his mum and starts learning kung fun after getting a thrashing by the local bullies. The movie, which stars Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith (the son of actor Will Smith), has been very well received in the US, and will premiere in Norway at Fredrikstad Cinema on 23 July.
Did you know? Harald Zwart always adds props that represent Fredrikstad and its football club, FFK, in his movies. And he also owns a cafe, Zwart Cafe, in Gamlebyen.
Famous locals: Hans Nielsen Hauge
Posted by admin in History and architecture on June 24, 2010
Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771-1824) was a lay preacher who created the largest religious mass movement in Norwegian history. He was born on a farm in Tune, near Sarpsborg, Østfold, and it was in a nearby field that, on 5 April 1796, he had a profound religious experience, ‘a spiritual meeting with God’, that was to influence him throughout the rest of his life.
Hauge started preaching the gospel, a radical move as lay preaching was illegal in those days. He was imprisoned for the first time in Fredrikstad in 1797. He was released just a few weeks later, but in 1804 he was put to jail again, and he spent most of the next decade behind bars. By that time he had developed a lay religious movement with branches all over Norway and had therefore become a force to reckon with.
Unlike many lay religious preachers, Hauge called on his followers to take active part in society and not withdraw from it in puritanical fashion. He helped establish several businesses, and he also inspired his followers to share material goods according to their needs. One of Hauge’s aims in getting the movement involved in various businesses was to create wealth to break the business monopoly of the rich, and thus stop their exploitation of the poor.
He empowered ordinary Norwegians by making them more independent in religious matters, and by inspiring them to look after each other, he also helped to create a new social awareness, and political interest. A central ambition was to make sure that ordinary people should not have to beg or suffer from hunger and that everybody should have work. This is the reasoning behind Hauge’s endeavours to establish industry and trade for his followers.
Hauge died 29 March 1824 and was buried at Old Aker Cemetery in Oslo. In the decades after his death many kinds of organizations were formed for the first time among common folk in Norway, and Hauge was undoubtedly a decisive impulse behind this social and politically important development.
You can visit the Hans Nielsen Hauges Minne at Hans Nielsen Hauges vei 39, Rolvsøy, between Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg. Tel: 91 35 65 61 (no website, but they do have a page on facebook). Open May to Aug.
Vebjørn Sand: Live Ice Project
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature on April 29, 2010
Visit www.norway-un.org/News/Archive_2007/071218_SandIceBridgeUnveil/ for more on the Ice Bridge (Live Ice) project.
Live Ice (part 2) is available on Youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUnpBDMKdKo
Østfold artist Vebjørn Sand
Posted by admin in Art, culture and literature on April 29, 2010
A Norwegian painter and artist, born in 1966, Vebjørn Sand grew up in Vesterøy, Hvaler, and is part of a well established family of artists – his dad is the painter Øivind Sand, and his twin brother the film director Aune Sand.
Vebjørn Sand had his first exhibition in Fredrikstad Library as a 17-year-old, before moving on to study art in Oslo, Prague and New York. The move paid off, and his career took off – today Sand is one of a handful of contemporary Norwegian artists to have achieved success at international level.
Primarily renowned as a painter, and very much inspired by the Renaissance and Baroque style (he’s been all his life a stark defender of the classic European tradition), he’s now better known for his public arts projects, such as the Da Vinci Bridge in Ski (2001), the 60ft high Kepler Star (aka Norwegian Peace Star) outside Oslo Gardermoen Airport (2000), and the Troll Castle in Holmenkollen, Oslo (1997-1998).
Vebjørn Sand is fascinated by the Antarctic (he went on several expeditions to Queen Maud’s Land in Antarctica), a source of inspiration for many of his paintings, as well as for his Live Ice Project, an effort to raise awareness about global warming.
He now divides his time between Oslo and New York, and was awarded earlier this year the Plankebærer prize in recognition for his role as an ambassador for Fredrikstad. Some of his paintings are for sale at Gallery Sand in Gamlebyen.
For more information, in English, see www.gallerisand.com
Live Ice (Antarctica 2006, NYC Dec 2007) www.liveice.com