I frequently bemoan the dearth of images of explicit physical affection that doesn’t resemble commercial pornography, so I’m delighted to call attention to this beautiful short film by Polish visual artist Artur Żmijewski.

As the website for his gallery explains, “The film features people with disabilities, who suffer from severe difficulties in their everyday lives as a result of amputations. A temporary relief in their struggle with daily activities is brought by healthy people, who lend them parts of their own bodies. In order to make up for the deficiencies of the body with disability, they lock with it in an uncanny embrace. However, offering a healthy limb requires breaking the barriers of intimacy, i.e. touching the scar – the most sensitive part of the body after amputation. Thus, Żmijewski’s film becomes a story of intimacy and ways of overcoming the mechanisms of exclusion.”

Artur Zmijewski – An Eye for An Eye, 1998 from Hurford Center on Vimeo.