The Binding Project The Binding Project is an ongoing multi-disciplinary project by Christine Dixie. The Binding engages with the psychological and social implications of the story of the Aqedah (the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham). Core to this engagement is an exploration of the complex traversing of space as an artist and a mother - distance is required as observer/artist and closeness needed as a mother in relation to my son. “The Binding examines the wider psychological and cultural impact of this lost body of fatherhood. Using her own son as a model, Dixie makes reference to key texts of Western culture which illustrate how the invisibility of paternity is, in fact, key to the establishment of patriarchal masculinities – an absence which is resolved through the actual or symbolic sacrifice of the son. “(Deborah Seddon, Paternity and Intertextuality in Christine Dixie’s The Binding). The first iteration, an installation, The Binding, was exhibited in 2010. This installation is now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. Working collaboratively with other artists and writers, additional elements to the project have been developed in conversation with the original installation. The project now includes video footage, an academic essay, short stories, limited edition Artist’s Books, relief sculptures, and the latest editions to the project, an ultra-violet digital print, and an original musical score.
The Binding Installation This multi-media Installation consists of six large scale framed prints, six sculptures and six v eils
Collections: The Smithsonian National Museum of African Art
Repair Credit: Julia Campbell-Such, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, 2020.
This print originated in an ultra-violet image of the sculpture ‘Blind’, taken at the National Museum of African Art so that it could be repaired. The concept of repair, an attempt to pay attention to damage that has been done and the luminous blue colour, as if picking up the blood at a crime-scene, seemed particularly appropriate and evocative.
The Binding, large scale prints, 1 250 x 1 800, Edition 10, 2010
The Binding Video by Mark Wilby Recording by Siyabonga Mthembu (The Brother Moves On)
The Binding Limited Edition Artist’s Book This limited-edition artist’s book is visually and conceptually linked to the installation, The Binding. Working collaboratively with bookbinder Hélene van Aswegen, the different surfaces of the book – leather, mohair, embossment, paper, string – were carefully considered and constitute a conceptual point of departure for the book. The prints were editioned by Bevan de Wet.
Collections: The New York Public Library, New York The Jack Ginsberg Collection, Wits Art Museum
Among the Dreams
A Beloved Body Burned
For Nights and Days
A Deep Impression
The Matrices noun, plural ma·tri·ces something that constitutes the place or point from which something else originates. 1325–75, Latin mātrix female animal kept for breeding In the installation The Binding, one of the ways in which the presence of the mother is indirectly conjured is using materials associated with ‘woman’s work’ such as a crochet blanket and embroidery. These were the materials that left their deep impression, their trace, in the white woven paper through the medium of collagraph. In The Matrices I returned to the matrices used for the print component of the installation in order to create the relief sculptures which constitute this series. Materiality is foregrounded in the act of creating and re-creating dimensional objects constituted in part from the original matrices.
Captured II
To Dream II
Bind II
Offering
To Sleep II
The Binding I Iterations Artists book. Edition 15, 200 x 200mm
Collections:
The Smithsonian National Museum of African Art The Jack Ginsberg Book Art collection The Binding/Iterations is an artist’s book that contextualizes The Binding Project. It includes an essay by Dr. Deborah Seddon, an autobiographical essay by Graeme Reid and an interview with the artist and curator Karen Milbourne.