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Personal Image Series

Connection

An intimate portrait series about trust, vulnerability and the physical language that appears when people can be fully themselves together.

Connection explores how trust becomes visible in the body when people are with those they can be fully themselves with. Maria works with people who have a strong awareness of movement and pairs them with intimate partners or long-term collaborators, creating space for the subjects to explore and improvise together.

The resulting portraits move between support, desire, vulnerability and play. Rather than treating intimacy as a fixed pose, the series looks at the physical language of trust—how people hold, balance, protect and reveal one another. Connection extends the boundaries of the intimate portrait while reflecting on freedom, identity and the ability to be seen without performance.

Credits: Project type — Personal Image Series | Love 2026 — Bastille Design Center, Paris | Quiet Strength 2026 — El Barrio Artspace, New York

Two people standing in a close embrace under warm brown light.
Two people in a close standing embrace from Maria Panina’s Connection series.
Two people standing closely together with dark fabric gathered around their bodies.
Standing intimate portrait with draped fabric from the Connection series.
Two people resting together in a soft seated embrace with textured neutral garments.
Soft seated embrace from Maria Panina’s Connection portrait series.
Two people in a sculptural seated embrace against a warm neutral studio background.
Sculptural seated embrace in Maria Panina’s Connection series.
Two people balancing in an athletic floor pose with bodies crossing in opposite directions.
Athletic balancing portrait from Maria Panina’s Connection series.
Two people close together in a dark, low-key portrait with faces and hands emerging from shadow.
Low-light intimate portrait from the Connection series.
Two people crouched closely together in a warm terracotta studio setting.
Crouched intimate pose from Maria Panina’s Connection series.
Two people reclining together on the studio floor with one figure supporting the other.
Reclining supportive portrait from the Connection series.
One person facing camera while held in a close back-to-camera embrace.
Close back embrace from Maria Panina’s Connection series.
Two people intertwined in a vertical dark silhouette with arms reaching upward.
Intertwined vertical silhouette from the Connection portrait series.
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