BOUND
From Bodies, 2023
"A body of work, much like the human bodies it comes from, is filled with contradictions and antagonism. With both, there is an urge to push boundaries and limits along with an obligation to exercise constraint - a delicate dance between control and exaltation."
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From The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942
"The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world."
Bodies was a publication, produced by Bior Elliott and Kazeem Kuteyi, with the creative objective of reflecting on the human body, both in actuality and through the realms of our imagination. I was asked to create a series of images, of which I chose to use images that subvert classical norms of beauty with the intention of highlighting absurdity and bodily extremes not normally explored in publications.
In the art of bookbinding, one finds a delicate dance between constraint and preservation. The binder carefully wraps each page, holding the knowledge within its covers, creating a relationship between the bookbinder and the desire to protect. The bindings that hold a book together are akin to the unspoken agreements and emotions that tie individuals to one another. The leather and thread, meticulously woven, reflect the intricacies of human connection.
Just as a well-bound book can be opened and closed, granting access to its contents, relationships too can provide moments of vulnerability and intimacy, all within the confines of trust and understanding. This is perfectly exemplified within the BDSM Subcultral practice of Bondage, where bodies are consensually tied, bound, or restrained for erotic, aesthetic, or somatosensory stimulation. It is in this nuanced comparison that the art of binding and bondage find a common thread, revealing the beauty that can be found in both restraint and liberation.
This results in images of human bodies bound to invisible constraints within the pages of the magazine, with those pages themselves being bound to one another within the physical confines of the publication as a whole.