how we kiss

Hello my love,

Happy Valentine’s day!

I love love; It is always on my mind and in my being. I see life itself as evidence of love - in a fruit split open, in the overwhelming generosity of the Earth, in the Sun shining inside someone’s eyes. But around this time of year, like everyone else, i find myself thinking of romantic love. And to me, a kiss is the most romantic and the deepest form of physical intimacy two people can share; it’s a moment of surrender, of opening, of giving and receiving, all at once.

A kiss feels like a language of its own. So much is being said without words, the body speaking, the soul revealing itself, desire and tenderness rising to the surface. Two inner worlds colliding. All that longing, all that softness, all that fire, gathered into a single moment of rupture.

I wanted to curate a small visual archive of the most sensual, tender and passionate kisses across time and mediums - photographs, sculptures, films - kisses that have shaped culture, or lingered in our collective memory.

The list is (almost) chronological, which makes it interesting to observe how the depiction of a kiss has evolved over time. And yet, beneath changing aesthetics and eras, the gesture remains the same. I think it’s so beautiful that in love, longing and in the way we come together, we are far more alike than we are different.

The universality of a kiss reveals, that love, is our essence.

Lovingly yours,
imdad x