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German artist Marc Ohrem-Leclef’s project Zameen Aasman Ka Farq (“As far apart as the Earth is from the Sky”) pairs portraits of men in India with recorded conversations about affection, friendship and intimacy. Its premise is not that a gesture has one reliable meaning: Ohrem-Leclef says its significance depends on the people involved and what they choose to share.
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A project about gestures that resist easy interpretation
Ohrem-Leclef says an early visit to India in 2009 drew his attention to men’s public affection, including handholding that could seem casual and intentional at once. He began research for Zameen Aasman Ka Farq in 2016. In a 2023 interview with Scroll.in, he said he had travelled through 16 states, working in metropolitan settings as well as small towns, villages and some tribal hamlets.
That figure describes the artist’s reported travel for the project, not a representative sample or a survey of India. The work offers a situated exploration of encounters and stories rather than a guide to what all men, or any particular community, mean by a gesture.
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“While I have come to understand that certain ways of holding hands have different meanings than others, I have realised that, for me, the beauty of these intimacies lies in their endless, subtle meanings, and in the fact that they express something that often remains unspoken,” Ohrem-Leclef told Scroll.in.
Why the portraits are paired with conversations
The project brings together analog, medium-format portraits and audio-recorded conversations. Ohrem-Leclef says words became necessary because a photograph of a public gesture can leave too much unsaid. Excerpts from collaborators’ recorded conversations became integral to the work, adding personal context rather than supplying a universal key to an image.
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The pairing complicates the viewer’s reading of intimacy, social expectations and sexual identity. A photograph may invite assumptions about whether two people are friends, lovers, or something that does not fit those categories; a conversation can introduce the speakers’ own accounts without making one interpretation definitive.
Listening without deciding what a gesture must mean
The interview frames questions of touch as open ones: What kinds of handholding suggest platonic friendship? Where do friendship and love merge, and when might friendship include a sexual relationship? Those questions matter in the project precisely because an outside observer cannot settle them by looking alone.
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Ohrem-Leclef describes himself as an outsider and stresses the limits of his own understanding. He told Scroll.in: “For me, that means a constant awareness of my limitations when it comes to my understanding of the social landscape and many dynamics engrained in Indian society – I often feel that no amount of research and immersion in the subcontinent’s history, the epics, the psychological imprint of colonialism, current political developments and gender identity discourse (which I have done a lot of) can fill that void.”
He also rejects the idea that his interpretation—or a viewer’s—should be treated as absolute truth: “If I – or you, for that matter – were to proclaim that our views or interpretations of homosocial intimacies and gestures of affections were to hold any kind of absolute truth, then I think we would be going down the wrong path.” The interview raises questions about how a queer or Western perspective shapes interpretation and who gets to photograph and narrate other people’s lives; it does not resolve them into broad claims about Indian society.
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How the artist describes working with collaborators
Ohrem-Leclef says he works with local assistants who speak regional languages and can help build trust. He says he does not assume that a new collaborator identifies as straight or has already considered a sexual identity, and that he does not steer conversations toward sexuality. He also says collaborators’ wishes about being recognized, using their real names, or choosing imagined names matter to the work.
These are the artist’s descriptions of his own approach, not an independent account of every participant’s experience. The interview includes short excerpts from collaborators’ recorded statements; as edited extracts, they should be read in their reported context rather than as complete accounts of a person’s views.
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What the project can—and cannot—say about change
The interview asks whether public affection is changing, but it does not establish a nationwide trend or provide population-level data on touch between men in India. Ohrem-Leclef’s observations across places he visited, and the stories gathered for the project, remain individual and project-specific. They can invite attention to the variety of meanings people give intimacy without standing in for all Indian men, queer people, or rural and urban communities.
In the 2023 interview, Ohrem-Leclef also said he planned a 2024 book with conversation excerpts in original languages and English translations, potentially in European and Indian editions. That was a plan reported at the time; the interview does not confirm that the book was later published or is currently available.
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