Bybrua
2006

I was visiting Stavanger as part of a residency project. The day we arrived, we got totally lost, and a nice local man helped us out, finding the phone number of our friend there and getting us to where we were staying. I took the man's contact details, hoping that I'd be able to pay him back in some way.

Each Christmas in Stavanger they have a tradition where they put a Christmas tree right at the top of a huge bridge that dominates the skyline of the little town. I loved the romance of this public gesture - and the fact that they flew the tree to the top of the bridge with a helicopter. The local paper were covering the residency project, and so it was arranged that I could climb to the top and have my photo taken with the tree.

I left the town, and returned a few months later to make some kind of new work. I decided that in order to return the favour to Arne, the man who had helped us, I would arrange for him and his wife to have dinner with my wife and I at the top of the bridge.

After a long and dark climb, we ate a great chinese takeaway together and drank a bottle of wine in the cold amongst last year's pine needles, and then we climbed back down.

You can see a video of us at the top on Vimeo.