Stal - Vernacular Animal Sheds by Servaas Van Belle

Livestock shelters in fields are so common in the Belgian landscape that nobody pays them much attention, but the countryside offers a range of architectural gems in many shapes, materials and colours. 

For five years I criss-crossed Belgium to find just the right kind of shed, carefully listing them so I was prepared to photograph them in ‘perfect’ lighting conditions, by which I mean dense fog. The fog was necessary to isolate and valorise the construction – without it, the shed is just an extra in the landscape. As fog is unpredictable, I never knew how long it would last, and the project took several years to complete.

In a way, a photograph of a weather-beaten shed is an allegory for our lives: we all muddle on, we try our best, we carry the scars and we all die horizontally in the end. Humans harbour a deep longing for shelter, warmth and security and that is perhaps what makes these wondrous little structures so human.