Werner Amann’s new book This Feels Safe takes you on a hypnotic trip through the ocean and desert habitats of California and Mexico: crashing waves, acid-coloured cacti, faces of friends pressed close to the sand, jagged rock formations, all while a military helicopter hovers low overhead. Shared intimacy found in prayer and in beach parties with colourful plastic bottles. Is the green ocean water poisonous or life-giving?

The book brings together photographs made over a three-year period, moving between portraiture, documentary, and essay, including four texts by the author. It explores encounter as a way of being in the world, where the primordial, the synthetic, the soulful, and the technological intersect. Fire, earth, ocean, and air pulse through the images, alongside recurring moments of ritual and touch. “This Feels Safe” points towards possible futures, portraying a world that is both vulnerable and deeply alive.