New text coming: After the siting of his work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University in 2002, Dan Archer was commissioned to make a new work on the other side of Cambridge. Here the developers Kajima Ltd. are building some very smart new offices for the goverment ministry DEFRA.

This piece links across the town by using the curving lower form of The Dream (Trinity Hall), which has here taken on a serpentine form which snakes along the ground. Slotting into this are three 5 metre high cast iron steles. These have discrete marks and text linking them to the Gog and Magog giants of Cambridge and national mythology and to the river Granta. Two hills near the site are named after the giants who perhaps sleep under them. They both fell in love with Granta, the goddess and
river which flows through Cambridge. These three and the assosciated standing stone like forms link the piece intimatley with its site.

Work started in early 2003 withe the making of the steles, first cut in expanded polystyrene and then spectacularly burnt out and cast in iron at H.Downs and Sons foundry in Huddersfield.

Work on the granite serpent commenced when Dan visited the quarries he uses in Fujian province in China in March. Here a subtly veined granite called Tiger Skin was selected and Dan started work on it there with the aid of Chinese carvers. They are finishing the stone work prior to its shipping to Cambridge where it will meet the cast iron forms.