BLACK BARN: PORTRAIT OF A PLACE

GREGORY O’BRIEN, JENNY BORNHOLDT, BRIAN CULY, PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, H/B, $85

FROM THE BEGINNING, the idea behind the Black Barn “project” near Havelock North in Hawke’s Bay was to create an environment that would attract people to the site. This new book looks at the diverse elements and offerings that gave that vision wheels – accommodation, cellar door, restaurant, art gallery, amphitheatre, famers’ market and, of course, the beauty of the place itself. Black Barn is a commercial project and this book can be seen as also serving that purpose, but it does so honestly and quite beautifully. Brian Culy’s photographs have simplicity and strength. Gregory O’Brien’s text deftly weaves wellmartialled facts with personal impression. But it is Jenny Bornholdt’s poetry that supplies needed whimsy and lift. Consider these lines from a poem called ‘Visitor’s Book’: Distant relation, holiday-makers, Firesiders and chartered accountants (figure skaters). JOHN SAKER