A rare sight in The Netherlands : half hidden behind a farmhouse, a crumbling hay barn. This country is generally so clean and organised that most people here would be shocked by my enthusiasm, of course, and this shed is certainly becoming dangerous to use. But my heart made a leap of joy and I rang at the door to ask if I could take pictures. I wish I could reproduce here the disbelieving face of the farmer’s wife.
Corrugated iron… It can provide the ultimate array of colours. I’ve heard enthusiastic stories about corrugated iron roofs I should see in New Zealand. I’ve recently taken photographs of a temporary installation of metal sheeting on one of the museums of Paris.
What comes nearest over here, if one is lucky, are the stacked shipping containers in our harbours.
My spontaneous association with this rusty little building, however, was with Bruce Chatwin‘s impressions in the inspiring ‘Bruce Chatwin – Photographs and Notebooks’ (1993) and photographer Deidi von Schaewen‘s installations of the pictures she’s made all over the world, such as a shed in Mauritania and one in Bombay (all © Deidi von Schaewen),
