Man Next Door.

Photographs by Rob Hornstra.

Self-published, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2017. 96 pp., color illustrations, 9½x11½".

"My neighbour Kid was 42 when he died. He regularly swept our shared porch, put out the rubbish and kept an eye on things when I was away. As Kid couldn’t read well, I helped him with his post. He borrowed my phone whenever he didn’t have any credit on his own. Kid had a turbulent life: he was banned from seeing his son and struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. In the last year of his life, he spent more and more time with drifters and junkies, begging on the street for change." - Rob Hornstra

Man Next Door examines the stigmatisation of the working class while offering a rare insight into the life of a working-class Utrecht boy. What emerges is a bewildering picture of Kid’s many personalities, inevitably raising the question: how well do you know the person who lives next door?

Trade Edition of 800 copies.

Limited Edition of 20 Signed and numbered copies with an alternate dust jacket. Housed in a custom slipcase. Contains a 9½ x 11½ handmade C-print.

About the Limited Edition Print:

“At times of tensions, Kid suffered increasingly from epileptic attacks and a narrowed consciousness. On a Sunday morning in 2007 he was brought home by the police. They had received a phone call from concerned residents in the neighbourhood who saw him walking on the streets at 6 am, barefoot and in underwear only. Outside, it was around the freezing point at that moment.

“Years later, when I received his mourning card after his sudden death, it turned out that Kid’s family had chosen this photo for the inside of the mourning card.”

"I made this portrait in the following days, when Kid spent most of his time on the couch. He could hardly walk, because of enormous blisters under his feet. Afterwards Kid appeared to be very content with this photo, mainly because of the colors of the Bob Marley flag in the background. During the funeral ceremony the flag was lying over his coffin."

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