Stacking Wood

The country farmers of the Ausseerland in Austria take special pride in the building of their woodpiles. The wood is arranged to create highly varied patterns which are peculiar to each individual stacker. This is a photographic chronicle of this unique local tradition.

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The country farmers of the Ausseerland in Austria take a special pride in one of life's most humble tasks: the building of a woodpile. Pieces of wood of varying shapes, colour and sizes are arranged in highly ordered ways to form patterns that are ever surprising and constantly varied, yet peculiar to each individual slacker. "Stacking Wood" is Mimi Lipton and Thorsten Duser's photographic chronicle of this unique local tradition. These pictures of woodpiles, while not letting us forget for a moment the solid reality of the material or the simplicity of the task, have an evocative, poetic quality. They arrest our attention, provoking questions on the archetypal need to organize. And they provide permanent record of temporary beauty, preserving images that, long after the original wood has been burned, will retain their timeless quality. Mimi Lipton was born in Austria and educated in Belgium and England. She edited "The Tiger Rugs of Tibet" (1988), also published by Thames and Hudson. Thorsten Duser was born and educated in Germany. He is an enthusiastic photographer who has travelled extensively in the USA, South America, Japan and Europe.