Barn Raising

A North American tradition, the “Barn Raising” is a collective effort to assemble and hoist up the timber framing of a barn for a community member. Sandro Della Noce, Guillaume Gattier and Gilles Pourtier conducted a tour of the Gaspé Peninsula (Province of Quebec) with the aim of documenting the old barns that dot the landscape of this region. The barn is also perceived as a symbol, a prism through which a multiple reading of reality takes place: at once cultural, social, economic and artistic. Selecting from among all the specimens encountered, they created a record in the form of photographs. This project bears witness, on one hand, to the heritage of vernacular architecture, whose ruinous state nourishes romantic imaginations and provides space for mental projection, and on the other hand, to a vocabulary of shapes and volumes well anchored in our present actuality. Text by Brice Matthieussent