raspberries and boot, Wolfgang Tillmans – Participant Interpretation

Over his career, Wolfgang Tillmans has created a visual language for lust. It can be captured in an object, a body part, a landscape. Red, the colour of an enticing danger: colouring a bowl of juicy raspberries, a thick-pile carpet and a vacated leather boot. What slipped out of and into what? In which order?

The masculinity associated with the high-lace Dr. Martens boot, oft fetishised by men who like men, sitting alongside the feminine, earthly pleasures of fruit. Tillmans gives us just enough to see what he saw in the moment of the shutter-release, but leaves an inviting space for us to pour our imaginings into. He encourages us to let our fantasies out, even if only momentarily. Without judgement, without shame, liberated in letting our feelings feel out and live. Creating a vocabulary for those unable to put their desires into words.

Written by MT Hutchinson.

Listen to an audio description of raspberries & boot, written and recorded by (Un)Defining Queer participant MT below: