Desire
For my legs to touch and rub the legs of another human being.
About the Photographer:
Ismail Odetola is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice focuses on social inclusion and inequality, diversity, technology, environment, beauty, health, peace and ecological justice in the world today. His visual works have won awards and prizes around the world. He has been featured in international exhibitions, recognized as well as published by UNESCO, OECD, FIBA, UNAOC, Blackartrmatters, Artfront Galleries, the peace studio, Flea Circus, Embracing Our Differences, to name a few.
For my head to rest and sleep on the chest of another human being.
About the Photographer:
Ismail Odetola is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice focuses on social inclusion and inequality, diversity, technology, environment, beauty, health, peace and ecological justice in the world today. His visual works have won awards and prizes around the world. He has been featured in international exhibitions, recognized as well as published by UNESCO, OECD, FIBA, UNAOC, Blackartrmatters, Artfront Galleries, the peace studio, Flea Circus, Embracing Our Differences, to name a few.
This gif was created in the peak of summer—also known as the mango season—and it represents the small joys one might find while living through the uncertainties of a pandemic. There's a sensuality and eroticism to this nationally prized fruit, intertwined with colonial histories and power relations.
About the Photographer:
liactuallee is an interdisciplinary emerging artist, who graduated from the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors in 2016, and received a postgraduate diploma in Aesthetics, Criticism, and Theory from Jnanapravaha, Mumbai. li recently attended the BeFanastic Fellowship, a global collaborative space bridging interdisciplinary practices, techart and climate change, where they led a project titled Earthling Meditations. li’s work deals with interconnections of contemporary discourses of gender, race and cultural displacement; and more pressingly ecology, and the ongoing climate crisis.
Living through the pandemic made me acknowledge the countless experiences I had taken for granted, and the emotional weight they carried. Something as simple as ‘touch’ and the desire to be ‘touched’ in a platonic framework became absent. The fostering of familial ‘love’ and ‘care’, expressing this ‘love’ by embracing ‘touch’ became almost obsolete. To finally be able to hold my grandmother’s aged hands—as we trace our heartlines intermittently during our conversations, to us is an act of rebellion and performance against the virus whose enemy is the desire for 'touch' and to be 'touched'.
About the Photographer:
Rohang Mishal is a 23-year-old artist currently based out of Bangalore but traces his roots to Goa and his Goan identity. He works with the illustrative and photographic medium, amalgamating creative and critical writing. His work lies at the intersections of Transgenerational Trauma, Identity, Gender and Mental health. Story-telling, narrativising and critically analysing the world in and around him through these lenses in the form of illustrative zines, comics and photo essays is central to Rohang’s artistic expression.
A photograph taken with an ex-lover, about the pain inflicted on each other during a break-up.
About the Photographer:
Vanessa Merritt is an Indian-American 35mm film and digital photographer and performer living in Michigan. By adopting a variety of art making approaches, Merritt explores the intersections of the political and the personal. They photograph everything from minority communities to self portraiture, including documenting queer relationships and body manipulation in indoor and natural spaces. A largely self-taught photographer, the framework of their practice crystallizes through the disciplines of feminism, queer theory, and environmentalism.