At the heart of Sameshima's new solo show, Being Alone, is a Berlin pornographic film theatre. The stark, high contrast of his photographs renders the screen almost blindingly bright, as the onlooker projects their fantasies onto it. It's through images like this that Sameshima explores not only the aesthetics of erotic spaces, but the meanings we give them; Being Alone creates not only a space for fantasy but one of safety.
In his series Erdbeermund (2023), photos of glory holes turn from erotic sites to a kind of hypnotic looking glass, with Sameshima offering a glimpse into fading, secret worlds. Sameshima says that his aim here is to explore 'scenes that were often overlooked in everyday life [...] presenting spaces that are highly charged, but without being explicit.'
Sameshima is explicit in the relationship that his practice has with queer spaces and subcultures, saying 'I've always had an impulse to document and save, or archive, out of fear of these things disappearing.'
[
add
]
[
|
|
...
]