Koto Bolofo creases book spines and gently fl icks through pages to explore what has happened behind the scenes in the world of bookbinding-an ancient craft that has protected our most valuable manuscripts since the infancy of art and literature, keeping safe the wisdom of the past. As the processes of binding have now increasingly moved from man to machine, Bolofo's Binding is a meticulous study of bookbinding today that embraces the new and laments the loss of the old. The human touch is still evident, but is gradually disappearing. Trying to hold back the tides of time, Bolofo playfully begs the question: has this cherished practice lost its soul and are we now slaves to the machine?

Koto Bolofo was born in South Africa in 1959 and raised in Great Britain. Bolofo has photographed for magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ, and made short films for the Berlinale and Venice Film Festival. He has created advertising campaigns for companies including Hermès, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Dom Pérignon, and his books with Steidl include Venus (2008), I Spy with My Little Eye, Something Beginning with S (2010), Grande Complication (2010), Vroom! Vroom! (2010), La Maison (2011), Horse Power (2011), Lord Snowdon (2012), The Prison (2014) and Rolls-Royce (2014).