Tanssin Aika 2026: Textures of Queer Intimacy - Photo Exhibition

Textures of Queer Intimacy (2022-) is a long-term photo and performance project by photographer and performance artist Jussi Ulkuniemi that makes visible nudity, queer embodiment, non-normative bodies, and love relationships - all photographed from an intimate distance. Ulkuniemi develops in his work a photographic method rooted in dance professionalism, where body awareness and somatics guide the creation of an empowering photographic situation.

At the Tanssin Aika festival, a photo exhibition is presented consisting of film photographs taken between 2022-2026, along with a lecture on Ulkuniemi's embodied photographic practice. In his photography, he employs tools from contemporary dance: listening to the body, open-ended assignments, and the creation of a neurologically safe space. The dialogical photographic situations aim to strengthen the agency of those photographed, and through the project emerges a sex- and body-positive landscape that challenges cis-heteronormative, fatphobic, and mononormative worldviews.

The project has been supported by the Koneen Säätiö.