Men at Sea

Mennesket ved Havet was made by Svend Wiig Hansen and put up in 1995 to mark the centenary of the municipality: four identical seated figures, nine metres high, in white-painted concrete, sitting on a low mound at Saedding Beach with their hands on their knees, looking straight out at the sea. They are deliberately blank and monumental, without individual features, and the artist described them as being about the human being as newly born and unmarked. They are visible from a long way out and are the first thing many people see from a ship approaching Esbjerg. Up close the scale is the whole effect, and the beach around them is used for walking with the Fano ferry crossing and the harbour cranes in view.

What you actually see

• Four nine-metre white figures - identical, seated, facing the sea.
• The approach from the water - visible from ships entering the harbour.
• Saedding Beach - the flat shore they stand on.
• The harbour beyond - cranes and the Fano ferry in the same view.

When to go

Year round; it is outdoors and free at all hours. One hour. Late light on the white concrete is best, and winter storms give the most dramatic setting. Summer evenings bring locals to the beach.

Honest expectations

It is one artwork on a beach and takes twenty minutes. There is no interpretation on site. The setting includes an industrial harbour, which is either part of the interest or a distraction. Wind off the North Sea is constant.

Nearby

Esbjerg town is south; the Fano ferry leaves from the harbour.