Birthed after exploring a friend’s private collection, The Distant Gaze is a collection of works initially inspired by images of Ethiopian and Eritrean women documented at the turn of the century by foreign photographers. It was quite evident that many of these images were designed to fulfill the fantasy of the foreign gaze as it relates to the black female body; the same women could be depicted in varying levels of nudity as a still form of striptease. Many of these images became postcards for sale in the European market.

Through these images, I found it impossible not to question the implications of the returned gaze of each sitter. The question of how these women’s bodies were objectified and commodified started an exploration in my work of how to re-vision or re-visit these images. Hence, the collection is a reflection and a conversation on how women are portrayed and also the various contemporary issues that still prevail as it relates to women in Africa and also beyond our borders.