DISTANT INTIMACY

29 series of 5 to 15 photographs, 2020

“I want to photograph you from distance. On your phone/laptop, you will turn the video call on and I will be there with my camera. In your kitchen, on your bed, at your window—wherever you like.

I would like you to be naked or as undressed as you’re comfortable to be. For the first picture, I will be dressed; for the next one, I will be naked; for the last one you will be dressed and I will still be naked. I will sometimes appear on the final picture, sometimes not fully and sometimes not at all.

Get comfortable, it’s about getting closer from distance, sharing an intimate moment in a safe environment.

I know I’m asking a lot, but please, trust me, we’re in this together.”


Distant intimacy questions the relationship between the photographed body and the photographing body, and interrogates representation of feminine bodies (including the photographer herself) in a private space, out of masculine gaze.

At the end of March 2020, Marie Déhé started to seek for a new approach to photograph others and create a safe and trustful space through distance, not being physically close.

She started photographing her friends, then strangers, through the screens of their laptops. For several months, she exchanged with 28 women about solitude, intimacy, nudity, trust, self-image and representation.



Book published by Art Paper Editions and designs by Lien Van Leemput for 6m56s, 2022