I’ve always believed that the only constant in life is change. If we don’t embrace change, we fail to grow. Even worse, we put ourselves at risk. We lose the capacity to change when change is forced upon us. I resolved long ago I’d never again be afraid of change. And that is why I am here today.
That was my opening statement. It was what I believed then and it’s what I believe now. Perhaps even more so. I sat back down in the sharing circle to the sound of clicking fingers, a sound others might call snapping.
Thank you, said Hanno, our facilitator. That was so brave.
Yes, said the man beside me, so brave. He leaned over and whispered in my ear. Can I ask you something? Can I ask for your consent to touch you on the knee? I just want to express, physically, how much I admire what you said.
I said no, but politely. I don’t generally enjoy being touched by strangers, and while this was also something I wanted to change, I’ve learned to be kind to myself and not to push myself too hard in situations that make me uncomfortable.
When the final round of clicking and/or snapping died down, Hanno walked into the centre of the sharing circle.
With these incredible acts of vulnerability the first part of our opening ceremony has come to an end. Now, in order to embrace the community that has gathered here today, I am going to ask you to form what we call family groups. These will be groups of people who come together because they are arriving here with particularly important shared experiences. Your family group will be a space to which you can return for safe reflection, at any time, over the course of our journey together. So now, please stand up and begin to move through the room, connecting with those you see around you.
I am not a very sociable person. I have a small number of close friends who provide me with the emotional support I need. With them I am extremely affectionate and relaxed. They have often called me things like playful, silly, or boyish. I rarely work well in social situations with people I don’t know.
I stood up and looked around the room, a converted barn, the walls painted white. I counted maybe forty people drifting across the wooden floor, forming small groups and clusters.
Eventually Hanno approached me. Ben, he said, glancing at the name badge I was wearing, my role as facilitator is to enable you to get the most out of your time here. So I was wondering whether you might be open to forming a family group with some beautiful people I have just met: Omar and Kemal. I think you three might have a lot in common.
These people seemed nice and I quickly agreed we could form a family group so I could return to my room for a rest. What I call my social battery gets very depleted by talking to strangers. The on-site accommodation was located in a renovated farmhouse close to the barn, a communal dorm with rows of bunk beds, but I had chosen to stay in my own room in a guest house a short walk up the road. I always like to sleep alone, in darkness and in silence. I like to have a space where I can go to recharge. The first day had come to an end and I wanted to be prepared for what I had decided lay ahead of me.
I’d recently witnessed a lot of change happening around me. I’d observed one of my best friends ruin a relationship because he became unable to communicate with his partner. He started lying about what he wanted, and ultimately ended up lying to himself. If we lie to ourselves, we risk forgetting who we are, and someone who doesn’t know who they are is a dangerous person. I never want to be a dangerous person.
Around the same time, my friend Sam was diagnosed with cancer. At the age of thirty-five. My other friend Anna had decided to freeze her eggs, only to discover that none of them were viable. In fact, according to her doctor, her chances of conceiving naturally, or even via IVF, are now negligible to impossible. Other changes were more positive. Kasia, a friend who has inspired and challenged me like no one before, finally qualified for permanent residency and can now stay in London for good. All this reminded me of what I already knew: life is constant change.
I know exactly what you need, Kasia said to me when I told her that I was ready for a new era. When I was living in Berlin, many of my gay friends would go to this festival, a weekend of talks, workshops, exercises. It would transform them, transform their entire lives. You have to do it. I can get you tickets, I know the organisers, I’m buying you the flights, it’s done!
It can be difficult to embrace change. But I believe the alternative is much worse. If we don’t accept change, we deceive ourselves by pretending that things can stay the same. And when we deceive ourselves, we also deceive other people. This leads to deception in relationships and friendships and if we are not careful, this deception can lead to abuse. To violence. People pretend to be something that they are not and when this lie is discovered, they lash out. I have observed so many abusive dynamics within relationships in my life. How many people are killed in relationships? A woman is killed by her partner or a member of her family every ten minutes. I understand this is due to patriarchal dominance rather than the inherent nature of human relationships. However, this is the world in which we have all been raised. I resolved years ago to break the cycle of abuse, and only enter into relationships where I felt that clear, verbal communication was possible in order to settle any conflicts that might arise.
If this meant that in the past I didn’t enter into romantic relationships because many, many people are incapable of clear, verbal communication – of simply replying to a text message, even when sent multiple times – this has never been a permanent decision on my part. I know there are other ways in which people communicate. I’ve read a lot of books, I’ve spent a lot of nights watching videos online, I’ve bookmarked a lot of pages on my internet browser. I know other forms of communication exist – touch, movement, even the hormones we secrete when we orgasm – it’s just that I’ve not yet been able to understand them. This might be because I only had a limited opportunity to learn other communication styles from my family, but after much reflection I concluded this isn’t likely to be the case. I have a very good memory and I cannot recall a time when I didn’t need clear, verbal communication. This is why, as a child, I never wanted a pet.
However, observing my friends navigate their recent difficulties did give me an idea. While I might not be able to change who I am, I might be able to change what I do. I might be able to understand other communication styles if I can translate them into the language I do understand: words. As someone who works as an audio engineer, translating sound waves in the air into electronic frequencies and back again, I realised this might be a technical problem I could solve, like dubbing a foreign film into English. I just needed the opportunity to actualise my will to change.
It is a festival, said Kasia, for anyone, how did she phrase it, for anyone in or attracted to the space of masculinity within a fluid gender spectrum. You go for a weekend and you stay in this farmhouse outside the city and you attend talks, workshops, healings. And you know, Ben, she said, I’ve always thought you would benefit from something like this. It’s going to be so good for you.
I believe that many gay men are sick. I believe that many gay men are deeply, deeply sick. This is because we are brought up in a society which is itself sick. The vast majority of gay men are raised in families where at least at first they are taught to be ashamed of who they are. I would call this a situation of emotional abuse. Many gay men have been taught to hate themselves. I don’t believe this ever really goes away. People may get to the point where they no longer consciously hate themselves, they may look in the mirror and think they love and accept what they see, but where does that hatred go? It is taken out on others in the form of toxic behaviour and emotional abuse.
When I lived for a number of years in Singapore, working for an English-language television station, the only friends I had were a group of gay men who would come to the country twice a year. Once in winter, once in summer. They would spend a month visiting cities in the Asia-Pacific region: Sydney, Honolulu, Hong Kong, Bangkok. It is a lie that you cannot be openly gay in Singapore. It is in fact completely legal. However, I experienced a strong division between those who had been born and raised in Singapore, and those who were expats, like me. These men would come to Singapore for a week at a time, they would stay in their hotels or hotel compounds, they would work out in the gym all day, and they would organise sex parties in their hotel rooms at night. No one would have sex with me, so I didn’t go. Perhaps it was because I was too small, perhaps it was because I was too brown, perhaps it was because I was too hairy. I have very hairy shoulders, so I rarely wear vests. Some men, I have seen this, they shave their shoulders every week. One night, when we had finished drinking vodka tonics at a hotel bar, one of them, Jamie, asked me if I wanted to come to their hotel room and take some drugs. I said no. That’s a shame, Jamie said. You have a great face, Ben; if only you worked out a bit more maybe you could be one of us.
Men like this, they are sick. They are damaged. They are everywhere, and they are dangerous. In any relationship, I need to feel safe. Men like this do not make me feel safe. They are why my most important relationships are my friendships. However, I’ve realised that in allowing men like this to hurt me, because I am not able to prevent observations like this from hurting me, I had unconsciously allowed myself to live in fear. And to living in fear, I say: no.
My flight arrived at the airport at six o’clock on Friday evening and I took a train to the village, which was located about an hour outside of Berlin. Most people were staying in the communal dorms, but there were also some men checking into my guest house. Or what they call in Germany a Pension. I like to plan situations in advance, to know what I am doing each day. On the train I had looked at the programme and selected the workshops I would attend. Since I’m not currently, and have never been, in a romantic relationship, I didn’t think I needed to practise intimacy’s choreography of gifts and requests. As someone who doesn’t have a family, I didn’t think it would be productive for me to go on a journey through my family constellation. I cannot ever see myself wanting to engage in plushie play. I also didn’t think I needed to learn how to dare to demand. I am someone who is already very confident about verbally expressing what I think. I always tell people the truth. This is why many people think I cause conflict, when in reality they just cannot handle the truth.
I am someone who is very picky about being touched. I hate, I absolutely hate being touched without my consent. Even when consent has been explicitly articulated on both sides I enjoy touching someone else – particularly their back and shoulders – much more than I enjoy being touched. If I have to, I prefer to penetrate other men rather than get penetrated myself. Just because I am someone who prioritises friendships over relationships, and who gets his main emotional needs fulfilled by those friendships, doesn’t mean that I don’t have sex. I have plenty of sex. Often, however, I find it unsatisfying.
Over the years I’ve experimented with many types of men, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m only attracted to conventionally attractive men who are tall. Taller than me. I understand I’ve been conditioned to feel this way but so far this is something I’ve not been able to change. Conventionally attractive men who are tall only want to have sex with conventionally attractive men who are also tall, or at least the same height, because someone cannot always be taller. If the tall always sought the taller, where would it end?
I am not conventionally attractive and I am not tall so when I message men looking for sex, or approach men in nightclubs, most of the time they reject me. When I’m not rejected, or when I’m accepted by someone who is tall but a little bit chubby, which is something I like, and who therefore will settle for someone who is short, like me, I enjoy sucking dick and rimming and licking men’s armpits as much as anyone else. I just don’t enjoy being penetrated. But many men underneath their conventionally attractive tall shells are just that: tall shells. They are empty inside. After sex they will rarely want to meet me again. Every time this happens, I ask them direct questions. I ask them: Why didn’t you reply to my message? Why don’t you want to see me again? What did I do that makes you not want to see me again? They rarely if ever reply.
This is something about myself that I wanted to change. I wanted to be attracted to different kinds of men. I wanted to embrace change. So I decided to sign up for the naked durational massage event, where apparently I would learn the pleasure of receiving as well as giving sensual touch. I showed up to a small room in the farmhouse wearing only a towel, as requested. There were maybe twenty men inside. The only windows were skylights in the slanting roof. There was incense burning and soft, chanted music playing from a Bluetooth speaker.
The instructor, Florian, reminded us that while this was a session intended to stretch the boundaries of what we would normally tolerate, if at any time we felt unsafe all we had to do was raise a hand in the air.
However, emphasised Florian, feeling unsafe is not the same as just feeling uncomfortable.
After dedicating a blessing to the space, we were told to drop our towels when we felt ready. I felt ready. I dropped my towel.
We were asked to begin moving around the room and when we felt the energy was right, to reach out and touch other people. For a while I stood in the corner of the room, waiting to feel the right energy inside me. Two black men were already stroking one another and a white man came up and touched their shoulders. I noticed that, even though he was tall and was smiling, no one was reaching out to touch the one visibly trans guy in the room. An older bald man reached out and touched my testicles but the energy didn’t feel right so I started to circulate around the room. I circulated again and again but then the older bald man appeared in front of me again and for some reason something about this room didn’t feel safe. I could see there were people in this room who also didn’t feel safe so I raised my hand and picked up my towel and left.
On the way back to my room, still wearing only my towel, I passed two members of my family group, Omar and Kemal.
I’m sorry about Hanno, said Omar.
Why? I asked, and both of them laughed, as if I were making a joke. They smiled at me and Omar put his hand around Kemal’s shoulders.
Your towel looks nice, said Kemal. We are just going to practise massages in our dorm, do you want to join us?
I explained directly and politely that I don’t enjoy massages and went back to my room. I remember feeling frustrated, and confused.
That afternoon, however, I had a very different kind of experience.
The workshop was called Sitting in Silence. This session, according to my brochure, would explore what happens when we connect through the simple act of looking. Participants were to gather in a room and stare into a stranger’s eyes for an hour, without speaking, paying attention to the thoughts and feelings that arise in this period of silent intimacy. When the hour came to an end, we were to return to our rooms, or one of the designated quiet spaces, and write down our thoughts as part of our reflective journaling practice, or simply to engage in whatever type of processing felt right in that moment.
The workshop, led by Hanno, took place in the converted barn with white walls, filled that afternoon with a soft, golden light. As I removed my shoes, placing them side by side against the wall, I observed that there were maybe thirty men in the room, everyone staring at the floor.
As we open this session, said Hanno, I encourage you to move through this space and attune yourself to the energy you sense around you. I will shortly ask you to stop moving, to close your eyes, and then to gently turn around on the spot. Then I will sound my gong, and the exercise will begin.
This time I was determined to follow the rules. I closed my eyes. I could sense other people around me. Due to my sensitivity about being touched, I have a strong sense of kinaesthetic awareness. I can feel when people are about to enter my personal space, and I could sense people turning around as I too turned around in the dark.
I heard the gong. I opened my eyes. I instantly made eye contact with someone who held my gaze in turn. His eyes were a deep brown, almost black. His skin was also brown, the colour of honey. He had a moustache, and short, curly black hair. He smiled at me before I smiled at him. He was exactly the same height as me. I remember feeling an impulse to look away. To look up, down, to the side. But I didn’t. I realise how strange this sounds, but already I felt I had committed to something that, if I saw it through, would change my life.
I walked towards him, carefully avoiding the other men who, in my peripheral vision, were drifting slowly across the room. I kept feeling an urge to look at his body, just for a few seconds. To double-check how tall he was, to be certain we were the same height. I could see that he was wearing a white vest and black denim shorts. He seemed to be lean, not muscular, but lean. I decided he was older than me, but only slightly. As we approached one another and sat down, without ever breaking eye contact, I realised that we were exactly the same height and that this would be a relationship between equals. A relationship where, right from the beginning, there could be no imbalance of power.
I sat down cross-legged on the floor and he sat down in front of me, barely an arm’s length away. I felt a rush of blood colour my neck. Then, suddenly, I started to get an erection. I panicked a little bit and the feeling of nerves only made me even more aroused. I could feel my erection pressing against my shorts but I couldn’t look down to see whether it was visible. I remember thinking: I have an average-sized dick. Sometimes men tell me, Wow, your dick is so huge, it’s so big, and I feel sorry for them. They need to imagine they are having sex with someone with a huge dick in order to feel turned on. That they are so hot that someone with a huge dick would fuck them. My average-sized dick was pressing against my shorts but I realised he had been staring into my eyes the whole time. He hadn’t been looking at my dick. That for some reason made me even more turned on and my dick even harder.
Even though I was staring into his eyes, I couldn’t help it: I was imagining what his dick looked like. His skin was brown. He could have been Spanish, Moroccan, Lebanese, from anywhere in the Mediterranean or Arab world. He looked generically Middle Eastern. I needed to know where he was from because it would tell me what his dick would look like, whether he was circumcised or not. I wondered what he thought my dick looked like. He probably thought I was circumcised, even though I wasn’t. This is a common misconception I have had to deal with. My mother was white, but I look fairly brown, which must have come from my father. This has always been a source of confusion to people, when they try to place me, as I assumed this person was doing now. I felt my erection shrivelling a little bit because suddenly I wondered what he was thinking about me.
My mother told me very little about my father, because, as she explained when I was eight, there is very little to tell. She met him when she was living in Sheffield, when he was working in a foundry for six months as an engineer. Making gun barrels. She got pregnant, and soon after he had to return home to Iraq. She wrote him a letter but never heard back. Then she moved to Coventry and had me, her one and only.
People assume that because I am brown, because I look like an Arab, that I must be a Muslim. Or, in the case of white gay men, that I am circumcised and going to be an aggressive, violent top. While, as I have said, if I do have to engage in penetrative sex, I would rather penetrate than be penetrated, I am a very gentle person. I don’t like being the object of someone else’s fantasy. This happens especially frequently when I date men while travelling in the whiter parts of Europe. Denmark, Norway, Sweden. Even France.
I noticed he was still smiling at me and that, as he smiled, the muscles around his eyes relaxed and his cheeks rose slightly. My erection was now very hard. His eyes were telling me he was happy, that he was comfortable. I decided there was a high probability he worked in some kind of creative but caring profession. A dance teacher. He had a dancer’s body. I decided he had come to this event to embrace change, and to expand his capacity for understanding people who have different communication styles than his own. People who are direct and always tell the truth.
Light from a candle was flickering in his pupils. I began to zone out and lose track of time to a certain extent. There are parts of this experience I cannot remember because there was no alteration to my field of perception for almost a whole hour, and I’ve read that our memories are anchored to changes in our spatial environment. If we spend extensive amounts of time in the same space, like our childhood bedrooms, all that time collapses into a single memory.
I realise in recounting this that what I am now going to say will sound absurd but I owe an explanation of my feelings to no one. No one else has the authority to decide whether what I feel is valid or not. Even though he had told me nothing, verbally, the fact that he hadn’t looked away for all this time meant he must have been open to the possibility of falling in love with me. I can’t tell you how I knew this, but I knew it. Love is a concept about which I have long been very sceptical. I have seen the damage that can be done, and can be justified, in the name of love. My mother, for example, must have been in love with my father, even just for one night, or otherwise she would have had an abortion.
Once I realised he was open to the possibility of falling in love with me, I felt open to the possibility of falling in love with him. I remember the moment specifically because I smiled with my eyes and then – I panicked. And not in the way that made me feel aroused. I panicked because I suddenly thought: I know nothing about him and yet here I am with the intense feeling that I’m falling in love. We have just been sitting here in silence. What if we were to enter into a romantic relationship – would he be capable of clear, verbal communication?
When I go out to gay clubs, I sometimes get approached by couples wanting to have a threesome with me. If I have taken a lot of drugs, I might say yes. But mostly, I say no. Because when I would have sex with these couples, they would completely ignore one another and give all their attention to me. Fuck me, let me suck you, and so on. I found this objectifying, and borderline abusive. Once I got over this feeling of being used, and most likely stereotyped, I realised there was something else going on. These couples: they were not communicating, not clearly and verbally. What couples ever do? Does anyone really know what the person they love thinks about them? Who would want to hear that truth?
So I decided to conduct an experiment. Rather than wait for couples to approach me, I started to approach them. I would go up to a couple and ask, Hey, I hope I am not intruding, do I have your consent to ask a question? Once consent had been granted I would ask: Would you be open to the possibility of a threesome with me? The results were revealing. Every time the couple had to look at one another before answering. Every time! Neither knew what the other was going to say. They didn’t know because they hadn’t been communicating. From this experiment I concluded that the vast, vast majority of men in relationships do not communicate openly about their desires.
I had been sitting down so long my foot began to cramp. Then I observed a confused look in his eyes. He had noticed something. My discomfort. My panic. What kind of person was he? Could he help me build a brighter future or was he crippled by the sickness of the world as it is? Before I told my mother I was gay, I took a deep breath and braced myself for change. Even though I had workshopped various scenarios, I had no idea what was coming. When she didn’t immediately respond I realised it was scenario three, so I told her I could move out the next day, I had saved up money, and I could work for a year before going to university. Which is what I did. I saw online that I now have a sister. But by the time I found this out, I had something better than a family of my own: my friends.
For in a friendship, unlike in a family, no one sticks with you out of some unspoken obligation. Likewise, in romantic relationships, people might not be attracted to you, as a unique individual, they might be driven by unspeakable needs, originating deep in their childhood, needs they could never explain to you because they can’t even explain them to themselves. Whereas in friendships, you are making a choice to get close to someone and they are making a choice to get close to you, a conscious choice that can always be discussed clearly and verbally. This is why friendships have been the only relationships in which I’ve felt safe, where I’ve been certain the other person is not lying to me.
The only relationships: up until this point. I was now really starting to panic. Was he deceiving me, right now, looking at my eyes but thinking, when will this be over, when can I just get up and leave? My legs tensed, and, yes, for a second I began to stand up. I felt the blood rush into my cramped feet, I thought about what Hanno would say, that I was breaking the rules, that I hadn’t stuck it out. And then I heard him begin to take a deep breath. Without once breaking eye contact, he slowly inhaled and sat up tall, stretching out his spine, pulling back his shoulders, and then he leaned forward and calmly continued to stare at me straight in the eyes. As he exhaled I felt my panic melt away. And then I knew. I was certain. He was different, unlike anyone I had ever met before. I just knew.
My panic had turned into reassurance. In fact, my panic had enabled reassurance. It had functioned like a test. I had momentarily wanted to run away, maybe in my mind I had run away, but when I had returned this person was still here. I felt the possibility of romantic love open up before me. He had somehow sensed my needs. I was able to smell him now, to distinguish his smell from that of the incense that was wafting through the room. He smelled like tobacco. He also smelled like coconut, and slightly sour, in a good way.
This is what I remember. I remember taking a deep breath and trying to assess the proportion of tobacco versus coconut in his scent. I remember hearing the gong. We stood up at the same time and I remember we were still looking into one another’s eyes. I understood that we had to leave and that I needed to begin the practice of reflective journaling that would lead to this revelation, the one I am able to share, in part, now. The relationship I had created had to come to an end, but I didn’t feel panic or anxiety. I smiled at him and he smiled at me. We turned around at the exact same time, and then I walked out the door and back to my room in the Pension.
The next day was the closing ceremony. I knew he would be there. I got to the room early so I could see everyone as they arrived. I saw Omar and Kemal stroll in and I had an impulse to smile at them. To non-verbally express some empathy and, yes, a sense of solidarity. But when I tried to catch their eyes they ignored me and sat down beside a group of tall white men. I flushed with blood and wanted to walk over and ask them, directly, why they had ignored me, but then Hanno asked us to sit down in a circle.
Or what I call, said Hanno, an inverse circle. I want us to be in proximity but also to be able to give each other the freedom to say things that others might at first find difficult to hear. So as you arrive, I ask you to sit down on the floor, cross-legged in a seating pose, or in whatever kind of seated position that feels comfortable in this present moment, and to form a circle facing outwards. Become aware of what this arrangement makes you feel. What is coming up for you right now?
Hanno non-coercively directed me to sit down and face the wall and because I was early I was one of the first to form the circle.
I heard more people arriving. I couldn’t see them but I knew there was no reason to panic. He would hear me.
Hanno invited us to begin the sharing. Normally I would have felt the need to verbalise my feelings right away but already I was learning: this is not something I always have to do.
I have something I would like to say, someone said. I would just like to express my gratitude to you all for coming here. We have all been so brave and I feel honoured to have experienced such intimacy with you all.
I would like to say something, said someone else. This is not an attack on anyone in particular, but I did feel that our discussions at times lacked a more materialist analysis of the oppression that we face but are also complicit in inflicting.
I saw Hanno glide past me while everyone sat in silence.
I have something complex to say, said another voice, and I am not sure how to say it, but I have never doubted anyone’s good faith this weekend so I will just try my best. I would never want to police anyone else’s desires, and I also understand that no one is entitled to be desired by anyone else. But I will say, especially in the durational massage event, I was made very aware that I was not attractive to anyone here. And I suppose I want to say nothing more than this made me feel sad.
It was finally my moment.
I have something to share, I said. I came to this weekend with the intention to embrace change. To push my boundaries. To maybe dissolve them, in a safe way. I believe that only if we are open to change are we able to survive. To thrive. I am someone who is very skilled at clear, verbal communication. In turn, I need clear, verbal communication from other people because if this isn’t available, there is a threat of misunderstanding. Misunderstanding which can lead to conflict, conflict which can lead to abuse. To violence. I have always known there are other communication styles, but I have never been able to understand them. This has caused me deep anxiety and frustration. But this weekend I realised I no longer have to be anxious, or to punish myself, because I discovered that I can translate other modes of communication into my preferred form. I can observe non-verbal cues like looks, blushes, postures, and so on, and silently, to myself, I can translate them into a verbal equivalent. I can then check in with other people and ask them questions. What do you mean? Is this what you mean? By doing this I can create a feedback loop of non-verbal and verbal communication and this can expand and transform my ability to understand and connect with people.
The circle remained silent, but this didn’t upset me.
Thank you, said Hanno, that was very passionately said.
Wait, I said, there’s more. I have learned that love needs silence, but silence is not deception. What I’ve also realised is that the silence that enables love – this is more powerful than the ideology of romance, which is only one kind of love. I believe we don’t know even a fraction of what love could be if we brought a comparable level of sensitivity and awareness to non-verbal communication within friendships. I feel like I have this new power and while I may use it to open the door for romance, I am certain I can use it to help my friends. This is my mission.
When we had completed our blessing I stood up and turned around. I couldn’t see him. He wasn’t there. It didn’t matter. This is what this person had come into my life to do. To give me this revelation. Sometimes, what I learn from observing people overwhelms me. I have to be very, very careful about revealing what I now know to other people, in case they use it against me. I cannot reveal everything I have learned, the danger would be too great. Just because I have changed, this doesn’t mean the world has changed. The world is still sick. The world is still full of danger. But I’ve changed. I have completely changed.
Artwork by Adam Farah-Saad, In this first year of my 30’s I’ve had more sex than I did in my entire 20’s (AMOR), 2023, Courtesy of Public Gallery, London
