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GHENT, NY — Art Omi presents Staging Area: A Barn Raising in Two Parts (Part Two) by Erin Besler—an installation that celebrates the communal and performative dimensions of a barn raising in order to reveal the social possibilities embedded in the construction site. In early 2025, Part One of this work was presented as an exhibition in Art Omi’s Newmark Gallery. Utilizing component parts of the barn structure as well as archival images of vernacular barn architecture captured as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey, the show mirrored the form of a staging area—an initial gathering of materials and community members organized in advance of a barn raising.
Part Two of Staging Area opens on Saturday, July 26, 2025 with Let’s Build Together: A Community Barn Raising, the installation of a barn structure in the Sculpture & Architecture Park at Art Omi. Staged as a public raising in collaboration with Erin Besler and Build Hudson, the event will bring together participants and visitors to collectively realize the construction process and further embrace the barn as a site of collaboration and shared labor.
While slots to participate in the physical construction are full, all are invited to gather together at the site any time between 10 AM–4 PM to have a snack, witness the process, engage with the project, and be part of this shared moment of construction.
Few structures have been as intensely labored over as the barn. From community raising weekends and feminist pedagogical projects to back-to-the-land conversions and acts of preservation, across the rural United States barns are sites where commonly held distinctions break down: between amateur participants and expert practitioners, nature and culture, individuals and collectives, manual trades and intellectual pursuits, and the discipline of architecture and the practice of building.
While American barns are often tied to romantic myths of isolation, self-sufficiency, and pragmatism, the collective efforts of barn raisings emphasize exchange, skill sharing, and more ubiquitous building practices. Here, catering kitchens, woodcraft workshops, and informal childcare unfold at the edges of the building process, weaving everyday life into construction. These practices challenge conventional notions of property and innovation, instead fostering systems of reciprocity and community over individualism and profit. |
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ERIN BESLER
Erin Besler (she/they) is a co-founder of Besler & Sons, a studio that designs buildings, software, objects, exhibitions, and interiors. Erin’s interests focus on architecture as a collective project, exploring the social, pedagogical, and material aspects of construction, social media, and other means of producing and sharing content that rely less on expertise and more on ubiquity. Their work has been recognized by the Architectural League of New York, a United States Artists Fellowship, the Rome Prize in Architecture, and the Graham Foundation. They have exhibited internationally, including at the Tallinn Architecture Biennial, MODEL Barcelona Architecture Festival, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Architecture/Urbanism as part of the group exhibition “Now, There,” which was awarded the UABB Bronze Award. Erin’s collaborative design work and writing have been published widely in e-flux, Future Anterior, Perspecta, Log, PLOT. Alongside practice, Erin teaches at Princeton University in the School of Architecture.
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BUILD HUDSON
Build Hudson LLC is a design-build firm with an integrated workforce development program for teenagers and young adults based in Hudson, NY. Build Hudson offers on-site training in the construction trades to youth in Columbia and Greene counties. Through partnerships with local school districts, Columbia Greene Community College and other community organizations, Build Hudson offers both full-time apprenticeship and short-term learning experiences for young people to enter the trades. Build Hudson focuses on social justice, housing, and climate-smart building principles. Build Hudson aims to address inequity in our community through an intersectional approach to workforce training; building trust and community strength through teamwork and training.
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ART OMI
Art Omi is a not-for-profit arts center in New York’s Hudson Valley that is home to the Sculpture & Architecture Park and Newmark Gallery, international residency programs, and thriving arts education programs. Art Omi forms community with creative expression as its common denominator for artists and the public alike to celebrate the transformative quality of art.
ART OMI: EXHIBITIONS is a laboratory for artists and architects to challenge conventions, take risks, and shape urgent cultural conversations. We champion artists and architects at critical moments of their careers, offering a platform to test new ideas. Through exhibitions, events, and publications, we foster projects where playful irreverence meets critical inquiry. Our program is designed to build community and provoke dialogue, self-reflection, and experimentation. We serve as an open invitation to all.
ART OMI: RESIDENCIES offers five discipline-specific residency programs for international architects, artists, dancers, musicians, and translators and writers. Since our founding in 1992, we’ve hosted more than 2,400 residents from over 114 countries. We invite the public to engage with our talented residents at free events throughout the year.
ART OMI: EDUCATION engages people of all ages with contemporary art and ideas in a stimulating and dynamic environment through programs including camps and weekly workshops. Through creative exploration, experiential learning and making, collaboration, and critical thinking, our arts education programs—beloved by local families and children and praised by educators for their pedagogical innovation—instill understanding, appreciation, and lifelong curiosity in the arts.
Free to all, Art Omi is open year-round.
Follow Art Omi on Instagram, Facebook, and on artomi.org |
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SUPPORT
Art Omi’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and by the Mellon Foundation.
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Major support for Staging Area: A Barn Raising in Two Parts is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
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Additional support is provided by the Princeton University School of Architecture, University Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Humanities Council, as well as the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
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