Bondage Végétal by Thomas Duval

Having worked with the likes of great chefs such as Alain Ducasse, Thomas Duval has cooked up a new photographic series from his culinary adventures. As Duval advocates proper and respectful treatment of nature’s bounty, Bondage Végétal provides a visual analogy for the flip side of the argument. Vegetables, a familiar presence in the kitchen, are bound with rope – tied, gagged, and hung high on the gallows. Referencing kinbaku – a Japanese style of tight-binding and bondage – Duval presents the vegetables as humanistic figures subjected to the punishment. Amidst the current movement to respect produce from farm to table, the slightly awkward, victimized state of the vegetables lead us to question: are the vegetables, or are we the transgressors?