On Exhibit: “Deconstruction in Practice: Bridging Past and Future”

Camden Public Library is delighted to welcome Second Story Builders for their exhibit in the Picker Room during the month of October! This exhibit will feature multiple artifacts, 3D models, and more from their reclaimed-material construction and transformation projects. All are welcome to visit the exhibit during the library’s open hours. An opening reception for the exhibit will occur on Saturday, October 10 from 2 PM – 4 PM.

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Historic preservation has often been understood as an effort to arrest change — to retain buildings, landscapes, and objects as physical evidence of the past. But preservation and permanence are not necessarily the same thing. Deconstruction presents another possibility: a building can be dismantled without being erased, its materials and artifacts recovered, its construction methods studied, and its history carried forward into new forms.

Second Story Builders works within this space between preservation and transformation, using deconstruction and reclaimed-material construction to connect the material heritage of Maine’s older buildings with the people, skills, and ideas that will shape what comes next. The exhibition considers what it means to preserve history not simply by holding onto the past, but by allowing what has value within it to remain active, useful, and meaningful across generations.

Among the work featured are materials and artifacts recovered from the Ephraim Barrett House, a ca. 1800 residence formerly on Chestnut Street in Camden, demonstrating how the contents of an historic building can be preserved and transformed for new purposes.