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Les cabanes de nos grands-parents

Nicolas Henry

In his Diario de la guerra del cerdo (Diary of the pig’s war) Bioy Casares had the young porteños from Buenos Aires kill people over the age of 50 to solve the problem of seniors. We may not be at that level yet, but the life of older people in our society today is surely nothing to be proud of: they are often alone and hardly have a role anymore of transmission to the younger generations. Taking this sinister fact as a point of departure, Nicolas Henry did a world tour in the footsteps of old people, in search of their knowledge and their philosophy. Rather than hand them a microphone to record them, he asked them to build the cabin of their dreams, the one that symbolises their aspirations and their vision of life, which he then photographed like a theatre stage. From Australia to Ecuador, from Jordan to Bandol, from Tokyo to the dessert of Atacama: this gives birth to crazy and poetical creations, based on scraps and pieces – materials, old gloves, branches, iron and dry flowers -, that accompany a humanist position on Nature, on time, on love. Long live a world of the old!


Les cabanes de nos grands-parents, by Nicolas Henry, Actes Sud, 2011, 192 p., 42 €.

Les cabanes de nos grands-parents - Nicolas Henry


Review published in the newsletter #239 - from 15 December 2011 to 4 January 2012

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