The video piece 'footbound' intersperses laboured movements of feet under the latex skin of a vacuum bondage bed with fourteen lines excerpted and recombined from writings of the poet Sappho. Conjuring spectres of desire with a cadence of laboured breath and insomnia-countering deep sea ASMR sounds, this performative work blends these references with underlying themes of bondage, body modification and societal drives of both pleasure and fear.


The ‘Lotus foot’ was an epithet given to the 3-inch and above bound foot- result of the foot-binding practiced in Chinese culture for well over 9 centuries. Enacted within families by women on their female young, the extreme nature of this body modification did not stop it from becoming widely normalised and a symbol of value.


Vacuum bondage makes use of the particular qualities of latex to create a pressure-sealed experience around the body, both immobilising and compressing. In this heightened state, the bound subject becomes unusually alert to their senses.