An excerpt from a night when I asked ‘What if we held hands at the Fresco Barn?’ made at Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting.

The Fresco Barn has stood for the past 80 years (fallen twice) as a place of gathering on Skowhegan campus. It has witnessed every lecture and holds years worth of frescos as an index of time. While on campus, one can listen to this archive of lectures on old iPods. Usually the presenter speaks at the podium and everyone sits in rows of chairs facing said presenter.


In thinking of it as an object—as an iPod—the architectural site sings to us as it reorients our bodies, making the space of giving (podium/projection wall) become a space of receiving.


‘What if we held hands at the Fresco Barn?’ is an invitation to take up space a little differently, listen, and maybe hold hands. Beams become notes and dimly lit frescos set the stage. People enter from the door by the podium, oriented by light, sit or lie down on the ground and witness the Barn perform.


All sounds were either recorded on campus or retrieved from my personal archive. The piano composition in the excerpt is an original by Bradley Sinanan.