Tiziana LisciCreative Director & Producer, Rome
An embrace in half-light: one hand cradling the other’s head

02 Photographic series, 2026

Unholy

The liturgy of the flesh

A photographic series on intimacy, shot in a bedroom with two people, Morgana and Mattia. The photographs alternate with short texts, like a small book of prayers.

Format
Photographic series & photobook
Year
2026

Credits

Photography & curation
Tiziana Lisci
Models
Morgana e Mattia

The sacred isn’t always a temple.
Sometimes it is a closed room.
An unmade bed.
A body no one sees.

Half a red grapefruit sealed in a plexiglass case
An unmade bed, floral pillows
Black and white: a woman sitting on the bed in lingerie
Black and white: a body lying among the sheets
Neck and collarbones in half-light

Closing the door behind you is the first liturgical gesture.
Outside remain the thoughts, the traffic noise,
the deadlines, the people who talk too much.

What do you do now that no one can see you?
Now that you’re alone with yourself?

Here, behind lowered blinds, only you and the flesh:
skin is the only confessional left.

A woman in lingerie, eyes lowered
A woman seen from behind by a window
An upside-down male face, eyes closed

There are days when being good to yourself
means wearing down your fingertips,
finding the sacred where others
see only guilt.

A female body arched over the edge of the bed, arms let go
Hands covering and caressing the body

There are gestures that become rituals.
There are gestures that become memories.
They stay etched in the mind
and no one can take them away,
and no one can steal them.

A man’s hands braiding long hair
Two hands brushing against each other
A bare back with a long braid, sitting on the bed
Black and white: a back and black lace
Black and white: a back and braid in half-light
A hip at rest, black lace on skin
Black and white: the soft line of a body
Hands entwined on the sheet
Wrists and hands on the pillow

No one ever taught us
how much courage it takes
to let yourself be touched.

An embrace: one hand cradling the other’s head

And even more to let yourself be seen.

Two faces touching, she smiles
A kiss in sequence, first frame
A kiss in sequence, second frame
A kiss in sequence, third frame
A kiss in sequence, fourth frame
Arms and hands on skin, warm light

Anyone can undress.
It’s a simple gesture. Everyday. Automatic.

But intimacy demands more.
It asks you to remove what the body cannot cover:
fears,
desires,
fragilities.

Black and white: a sleeping face on the pillow
A kiss on the neck, a hand at the throat
His hands on her hip
Shadows of two bodies cast on a wall