sacrifice victim | a semantic change

The book is a journey through the dictionary definition of the Hebrew word Korban (root: ק.ר.ב), exploring the semantic shift it underwent—from its first appearance in the Bible as a description of a ritual meant to draw closer to God, to its modern secular usage describing someone harmed by the actions of another person, nature, a pandemic, etc.

The book contains no text except for the dictionary definitions that opens it (on both sides) and is presented as a visual code laid out along a timeline, reflecting my interpretation of events that led to this semantic shift.

It was printed as a special edition of six copies, hand-bound, with no digital tools involved - using the original printing plates in letterpress with a collagraph technique. The images themselves were created using wall putty material that I prepared and printed on a press in two colors.

A broader edition was later produced from the original book using risograph printing. The original prints were scanned and reproduced as faithfully as possible to the original, with production methods more suitable for a larger volume—360 numbered copies.