BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN

SHOP

The
Good
Citizen

Who was freely invited into this space and who wasn’t? In what ways are the ripples of our past seen in our present? How can we engage more honestly with our history?

The Good Citizen explores how American society came to be what it is today. Over a period of eight years, photographer Benjamin Rasmussen travelled to 43 states and was introduced to over 500 people as he investigated the impact of the country’s complex history on contemporary society. In this new book, Rasmussen’s photographs are combined with essays by Frank H. Wu and collectively they seek to provoke thought and conversation around the complicated nature of American identity.

Published by GOST Books
Text by Frank H. Wu
8x10 inches
240 pages, 131 Images
Hardback clothback

The
Good
Citizen Special Edition

The Good Citizen Special Edition Boxes.

Separate special editions were created for each of the book’s five chapters, containing a project print, Polaroids from the Good Citizen, press print and archival objects that I collected while researching that chapter. Only five of each edition exist.

Curated by Benjamin Rasmussen and hand built by Terry Ratzlaff.

Email for aditional information and images.

Handmade by Terry Ratzlaff
Each box includes one archival inkjet print, one archival press print, two Polaroids, varoius original objects.
12.5x16x2.5
Book board, Ratchford cloth

Violence

Exclusion

Archetype

Beauty

Surveillance

Cold
War
Cowboy

Dean Reed was the most famous American in the Communist World. An actor, director and pop icon, he was ridiculed in the West and idolized in the East. Cold War Cowboy uses archival and contemporary images, along with news accounts, letters and interviews, to tell the story of a naïve ideologue who was used by both sides of a global conflict.

Self published newspaper
Archival texts
11.5 x 14.5
58 pages, 28 images
45 GSM salmon newsprint