Soft Linings was a two-person exhibition with Swiss artist Massimiliano Rossetto at Casa Azul in the Verzasca Valley. Curated by Dr Greg Tiani, the exhibition explored the interstitial spaces in which queerness can be found and reactivated, imagining the photographic landscape as an embodied and tactile site of memory, intimacy and belonging.

I presented works from Glimmer, my solo body of analogue photography developed during a residency with Verzasca Foto and Stills Centre for Photography. Returning the work to the river that inspired it, I brought together original photographs and previously unseen reimaginings. Made through embodied rituals and sustainable darkroom processes, the works combine locally gathered plants, river water, light and silver within hand-printed images. Through photography and sound, Glimmer considers encounters between landscape and body as tender queer spaces of refuge, friction and magical realism.

Alongside these works, I presented Collecting Light, a new 16mm film made with collaborator Chloe Charlton. Sustainably processed by hand, the film offers an intimate glimpse into my photographic methods and an approach to image-making grounded in collaboration, care and environmental serendipity.

Rossetto presented sculptural and photographic works from FEROCE and we left skin in the cracks. Together, our works transformed rocks, water, latex, metal, bronze and organic matter into repositories of memory and environmental sensuality—soft openings through which landscape, queerness and belonging might be encountered anew.

Soft Linings was presented by Verzasca Foto at Casa Azul, with works developed through the support of Verzasca Foto, Stills Centre for Photography and the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust. As part of the closing event, Jess, Massi and Greg Tiani (the curator of Soft Linings) were in dialogue together about their work at Casa Azul in Gordola, Ticino, Switzerland.