Approfondimento culturale
Gear Up. Play Proud. Stand Out… Together: from Teramo to Skyline
Freedom is a shared act. Discover the Leather Club Roma photography exhibition, from Teramo to Skyline, and the people, consent and community behind its images.
Leather Club Roma · https://www.lcroma.com/en/gear-up-play-proud-stand-out-together-teramo-skyline/
Freedom is a shared act. That idea runs through Gear Up. Play Proud. Stand Out… Together, the Leather Club Roma photography exhibition celebrating the strength of the leather, fetish and kinky community. First presented in Teramo on 15 November 2025, it was subsequently hosted by Skyline Club Roma from 9 May to 21 June 2026.
The body as language, the community as home
The project began in a dungeon, a symbolic place of freedom and desire, where fifteen Leather Club Roma members chose to tell their stories through photography. Its focus is people, relationships and what happens when we show ourselves together, with honesty and awareness.
Leather, latex, uniforms and accessories become a language of identity, pride and belonging. The images express the courage to live desire respectfully, the value of consent, listening and responsibility towards others. Strength also finds room in tenderness: hands that prepare, an embrace that supports, and care that accompanies an encounter.
Four words, one shared meaning
- Gear Up: embracing your uniqueness and wearing it without fear.
- Play Proud: experiencing desire as a free, conscious and respectful language.
- Stand Out: showing yourself with pride, even when you challenge convention.
- Together: recognising in others the connection that gives individual experience its meaning.
The exhibition invites us to look beyond stereotypes and recognise the beauty and dignity of a community that builds belonging every day through respect and freedom of expression.
From the manifesto to the images
The exhibition is a visual extension of the Political Manifesto of the Fetish and Kinky Community for Pride Month 2025, promoted by Leather Club Roma together with associations, collectives and groups from the Fetish & Kinky community.
The manifesto asserts the presence of fetish and kinky people as a living, visible part of the LGBTQIAPK+ community and affirms the political value of the body, consent and freedom of expression. Photography translates these principles into gestures, looks and relationships: a collective memory that makes visible what holds people together.
Teramo: the first stop
The first exhibition was hosted by theInteramnia association in Teramo on 15 November 2025, at Ad Maiora, corso San Giorgio 17. The gathering took the project beyond Rome, opening a space for discussion of leather, fetish and kinky culture as an expression of freedom, awareness and community.
Photographs from the day document the installation, conversations and people who shared this first stop.
Rome: the exhibition at Skyline
From 9 May to 21 June 2026, Skyline Club Roma welcomed the exhibition as part of its cultural initiatives supporting the LGBTQIAPK+ community. Visitors followed the exhibition from the staircase to the bar area, weaving the images into the life of the club.
Visitors were invited to pause, observe and recognise themselves before the music and the evening began. The exhibition reminded us that behind the gear and the party is a community choosing to be present together.
The journey through the works
The titles and accompanying texts trace ten stages of the story:
- The first gesture: trust, welcome and the passing on of experience as forms of belonging.
- Among equals: a meeting between generations grounded in respect and consent.
- Playing to understand each other: the body and play as languages of connection and listening.
- Aftercare: responsibility and care after intensity.
- The strength of care: seeing, supporting and protecting one another.
- Chosen family: relationships built through trust, safety and recognition.
- Superheroes: humour and the freedom to rewrite roles.
- The strength of us: contact as a chance to feel welcome.
- Brothers in leather: solidarity, understanding and brotherhood.
- No one is alone, no one is the same: diverse bodies and stories sharing the same space of freedom.
Credits and thanks
Organisation: Leather Club Roma.
Project photography: Antonello Ariele Martone.
Project concept: @shaiwolf81 and @mr_lehis.
Thanks to Stefano, Simone, Giuseppe, Paolo, Antonello, Chris, Riccardo, Giordano, Raffaele, Alex, Luca, Matteo, Gianluca, Nicola, Alessandro, Fabrizio, Luigi and Valerio for taking part. Thanks also to Massimo for making his dungeon available, to the Interamnia association for hosting the first exhibition, and to Skyline Club Roma for the Rome exhibition.
The Political Manifesto is available on the Instagram profile @gearup.playproud.standout. For information: info@lcroma.com.
The Teramo exhibition in photographs
The exhibited works
Photographs of the installation in Teramo allow us to follow the exhibition from afar: gestures, relationships and identities take shape in the images.
A visit to the exhibition
The video traces the installation in Teramo, exploring the images and the spaces that welcomed them.
The complete exhibition presentation
The presentation includes the synopsis, the texts accompanying the ten works and the acknowledgements: a guide to the journey, from the trust of the first gesture to the diversity of the community.
Open the exhibition presentation PDF · Download the PDF
Behind the exhibition images
The story continues in the club’s photography archive: discover the photoshoot and the campaigns created from these images.
