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It takes my mind off things (signed)

by Robin Butter

Photographs: Robin Butter

Text: Benjamin B Roberts, Robin Butter

Publisher: selfpublished

136 pages

Year: 2015

Price: 49 €

Comments: First trade edition of 400 copies. Design by -SYB-, Dutch and English, 250 x 310 mm, soft open binding

'It takes my mind off things' is a wonderment at and interrogation of the shooting culture in the Netherlands. In this provocative piece, Robin Butter poses the question; has the Netherlands always been a 'secretive' gun-nation? Secretive in that it has a long-standing fixation with firearms that is systematically hidden and denied. In her uncloacking issue, Butter's point of departure the country strict control over nature; The Netherlands is a nation that has litarally reclaimed land from the sea to build it's country. This trend of man bending nature to his will continues in the Dutch approach of cultivating flora and fauna, a practice that necessitates hunting. Butter goes further in examining the firearms fixation in all of it's many manifestations: from the political-economic sphere of transnational interactions - the Netherlands place in the top five for creating firearm components in Europe - to the socio-cultural realm of the individual - the joy many Dutchman find when firing at shooting ranges, a tradition that has excisted for over a hundred years. Think of the famous Dutch painting of the 'Nightwatch' by van Rembrandt van Rijn probably one of the oldest paintings of a shooters range, in that time called a marksmanguild portrayed.

Awards & Nominations:

YdocBookappPrize 2014/winner
Unseen Dummy Award 2014 / shortlisted

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