Artist Sophie Calle shares her views on privacy

Sophie Calle has no religious belief at all, nor any philosophy of life. She lives alone, has no children and doesn't have to feed anyone since her "love" - her cat for 18 years - died earlier this year. "If I want to stay in bed for one week, I can stay in bed for one week," she says at her solo exhibition at Galerie Perrotin's Hong Kong gallery.

That, by the way, is about as personal as it gets for the pre-eminent French conceptual artist. Calle describes herself as being "super sentimental but very cold at the same time: sentimental distant", and her work reflects that.

In the project Exquisite Pain (2003), Calle documented a break-up she suffered two decades earlier. During her three-month recovery period, she recounted her grief to 99 strangers and collected the most painful memory from each.

Making that work was therapeutic for her, though she points out, "it's not the motive, it's the cherry on the cake".

The project has had a similar effect on many others, including the filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, who tried to arrange a collaboration with her while planning an English-language breakup movie, which became 2007's My Blueberry Nights.

"I don't do it for this, but I've received a lot of letters from women saying that they used my book during difficult times," says Calle.