Though it is from 2009, I just got a copy of Caroline Waltman’s artist book Native Soil. Like so many of her dutch colleagues, the design is top and I’m not sure if she has many left as it is only an edition of 100 copies.

From the text I gather that Caroline comes from a sculpture background, her text begins with an interesting statement:

As a sculptor I have touched the boundaries of the landscape, only as a photographer have I been able, as it were, to enter it.

CW

‘Native soil’ is printed on newspaper paper. It has 200 pages with 164 (full color) photos. The book has a traditional Japanese binding and an artificial leather cover with embossing. The sequence of the photo’s is determined by both the visual spreads, and the pages that are physically tied to one another; the traditional Japanese binding makes that front- and backside of each page together also make up for one spread.

The images make subtle references to the circle: birth/life/aging/death and, because the people, places and details are sometimes so intimate, it must be in the rural landscape where Caroline either lives or grew up; hence the title.

Once again, here is a case of the photographer having a better documentation of the book than I manage to throw together.