In the Old Testament story of the Sacrifice of Isaac, God commands the patriarch Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son. As Abraham is about to comply, a messenger of the Lord prevents him and reveals a ram to be sacrificed instead. In the Jewish tradition the story is called the Akedah, the binding, referring to the binding of Isaac's hands and feet as he is prepared for sacrifice. This project plays on the term binding and uses bookbinding as an analytical tool to explore the story.
The piece examines the bonds of human relationships using materials and structures to reflect the different experiences of the characters and the way these experiences shape their identities. It questions individual relationships with God and God's relationship to the Jewish people. Bookbinding as a destructive yet creative act becomes a metaphor for the positive consequences of sacrifice and the nature of experience itself.
The texts include different versions of the narrative and commentaries from a range of sources from medieval Rabbis to Bob Dylan. They show the variety of and possibility for interpretation and, as with my bookbinding, invite the reader to make their own interpretations using their own skills and experiences.