The Binding Folio/ A Beloved Body Burned

The prints are based on details of the six, large-scale prints exhibited as part of the installation. A combination of etching and embossing appears on the one side and a surface of silver ink on the other. Embossed bandages link the pages and become a metaphoric thread recalling wounding and the violent rituals enacted in the establishment of male identity.

The title of this work is taken from the dream told to Freud by a female patient of a father who watched his dying son. It appears in chapter seven of The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud.

After sleeping for a few hours the father dreamed that the child was standing by his bed, clasping his arm and crying reproachfully: “Father, don’t you see that I am burning?” The father woke up and noticed a bright light coming from the adjoining room. Rushing in, he found that the old man had fallen asleep, and the sheets and one arm of the beloved body were burnt by a fallen candle.