A logical continuation from Albrecht’s debut chapbook pinky swear, handshake is a space of anxious play. It combines conceptual photography with sharp and disarming poetry, investigating personal and public tensions between environment, desire, isolation and fear in the wake of the devastating East Australian bushfire season of 2019-20 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Intertwining the earth(l)y material with the metaphysical, handshake grasps onto what is ‘real’ in a grounding exercise against panic