somatic encounters

There are innumerable ways to open our selves up to one another. Intimacy can be expressed through the pulling back of one’s clothing, the ways we choose to hold each other, or the mapping of skin’s surfaces. When removing clothing and exposing the body, one opens oneself up to enormous vulnerabilities. Clothing acts as a protective layer, hiding people from violence, covering up their scars, bruises, stretch marks, acne, flesh. When this layer is removed in the presence of someone else, there is inevitably an offering up of oneself, of physical flaws and emotional fears; and, the accepting of these by another is what creates safe intimacy.

Our bodies are our boundaries to our private selves. The climax of people’s emotional connections is skin to skin contact, yet we can only get as close to one another as our physical barriers allow us to. We can breath on skin, touch it, know every pore and curve, and yet we cannot surpass it, we cannot become the other. The surface covers the depth. We are impermeable.

These photographs discuss the intimacy between skin and skin.