The Binding Prints / 3. Bind

In the Collection of the Smithsonian Museum of African Art.

Bind refers to the binding which takes place in the story of the sacrifice in the Abraham and Isaac story. In his book The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice, Jon D. Levenson suggests that binding a person was a standard procedure in human sacrificial rites. The bandages that I used in this print also reference the swaddling cloth that Christ was wrapped in as a baby, as well as Christ’s shroud. So this image incorporates the baby, the sacrificial child and the death of Christ. The act of binding it is suggested is enacted from birth to death.