The sculpture is an homage to Helga – a little girl who is said to discover silver in the region in early 17th century. The story tells of Helga shepherding cattle at the top of a hill when she saw something glimmering. She picked it up and brought it home to her father. Recognizing it as silver he brought it to a near by town to sell it. The police found it suspicious that a poor farmer had silver. He was given the choice between telling where he had found the silver or being sentenced to jail. The king of Norway and Denmark then came to Norway the following year and founded the town of Kongsberg in 1624. The silver mining in the mountains made the new town prospering, but the family never got any recognition for their findings.
The kings all have their statues around the city, and when the City of Kongsberg approached us to design a sculpture for children, we felt it was time to have a sculpture in the hommage of Helga. The sculpture is a silvery mountain penetrated by two tunnels. It's located in Kongsberg park where children can climb on it and cralw inside its tunnels. 
Photo: Ragne Hvidsen. 
Helga in Kongsberg park. Photo: Ragne Hvidsen. 
Photo: Ragne Hvidsen. 
Photo: Ragne Hvidsen. 
Photo: Marte Rognerud. 
Photo: Marte Rognerud. 
Helga mountain waiting to be installed in Kongsberg, 
Inside tunnel 1. 
Tunnel 2. 
Additional fixing: all the narrow corners on south side of the mountain are treated. We weld 200 steel pipes in the corners and fill the remaining spaces with chemical metal. The result looks like the someone dipped the whole sculpture in a pool of quicksilver. 
Spring 2011. Due to different interpretation of safety regulations inside and outside EU, we return to Kongsbaerg for more welding work.
May 2010. Risto, Jukka and Helga all in pieces after three weeks of welding work...
Tunnel no 1 ready for powder coating. 
Tunnel no 2. 
The ready tunnels are cut out for paint work. 
Assemly work of tunnel no 1 in process. 
Johan resiting on the mountain. 
The welding jig is dismantled and cutting out holes for the tunnels begins. 
After a thousand welding points the peak of the mountain is reached. 
Assembly work starts.
April. Bent pipes arrive to Selki. 1:1 scale prints needed before cutting the pipes into correct lenght. 
Mr. Jormanainen bending the pipes. 
March. Visiting Joros in Punkaharju to start the bending work. 
January. First illustration of Helga.