My Uncle Owns A Farm
Biography

My Uncle Owns A Farm is a collection of four interrelated stories about my uncle Léon Marie Dekker, an artist and graphic designer who lives on a farm in De Achterhoek.

The writings explore the contradictions Dekker faces, having moved into a farm decades ago in a very conservative part of the country. The stark differences between his identity and his surroundings create for awkward situations, as little as asking his neighbour for soy milk in his coffee, to the technical college he teaches at where where art is shrugged off as a waste of time by his colleagues.

Usually muttered as an argument in favour of eating meat—a scenario where one’s uncle treats his animals with love and care—My Uncle Owns A Farm applies this argument to Dekker’s case, completely inverting it.

The contrasts in Dekker’s life I try to mimic with the materiality of this publication. Between cover and body, between paper types, between image composition, between bindings.

Typeset in Joly by Blaze Type.

Edition of 5.

Photography, graphic design and binding by Rutger van Aken. Printed and bound at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam.