Melanie MANCHOT is a visual artist who works with photography, film and video as a performative and participatory practice. Her projects often explore specific sites, public spaces or particular communities in order to locate notions of individual and collective identities. The mutability of subjectivity as well as the agency of the camera in creating a set of relations are key interests within Manchot's on-going enquiry into personhood and its representations.
The practice operates on the threshold of choreography and observation, of documentary modes and staged scenarios or performances (working with an economy of gestures to articulate relations orches) trated by and around the camera.
Cameras, whether still or moving, are crucial devices shaping the construction of the work. In Manchot's practice cameras are not primarily machines that generate images, more importantly they are an organising principle, an apparatus that both holds and produces agency and hence becomes part of a set of coordinates that articulate the work itself.
Increasingly the practice explores histories of film-making, cinematic tropes and devices to explore filmic conventions. Durational single takes, long panning and tracking shots are key visual devices that recur across projects. In recent works, the importance of sound is foregrounded; field recordings, found sound and foley are used to create soundscapes that support and at times drastically shape the reading of the work.
Frequently based on long periods of research and engagement with groups of people Manchot's practice and production tends to be informed by a process based methodology. Each project proposes different forms of engagement, dialogue and relational exchange with the people who contribute to and perform within the pieces. Some extend an on-going enquiry into portraiture as a performative act, others an engagement with and commitment to a particular physical location and its community. Increasingly, the work employs installation and viewing-structures specific to each work to propose different forms of spectatorship; some pieces set up immersive experiences while in others the viewer is invited into a more discursive or active form of looking. Recent shows use the exhibition as a site and/or stage, setting up non-linear forms of structuring the experience of the works.
Her work has been shown nationally and internationally including exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery (London); Towner Art Gallery (Eastbourne); Bloomberg Space (London); Whitechapel Gallery (London); MacVal, Musée d’Art Contemporain (Paris); Photographers Gallery (London);Brooklyn Museum (NY); Australian Museum of Photography (Sydney); Courtauld Institute (London); Museum Folkwang (Essen) and as part of La Nuit Blanche (Paris). Manchot is the recipient of many awards including the Oriel Davies Award 2012.
Manchot received her MA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal College of Art in 1992. Until 2005, she was a lecturerer at many UK art colleges including Goldmsiths College (London) and the University of the Arts (London) and she continues to contribute to conferences and symposia internationally.
Melanie Manchot lives and works in London (UK).
The practice operates on the threshold of choreography and observation, of documentary modes and staged scenarios or performances (working with an economy of gestures to articulate relations orches) trated by and around the camera.
Cameras, whether still or moving, are crucial devices shaping the construction of the work. In Manchot's practice cameras are not primarily machines that generate images, more importantly they are an organising principle, an apparatus that both holds and produces agency and hence becomes part of a set of coordinates that articulate the work itself.
Increasingly the practice explores histories of film-making, cinematic tropes and devices to explore filmic conventions. Durational single takes, long panning and tracking shots are key visual devices that recur across projects. In recent works, the importance of sound is foregrounded; field recordings, found sound and foley are used to create soundscapes that support and at times drastically shape the reading of the work.
Frequently based on long periods of research and engagement with groups of people Manchot's practice and production tends to be informed by a process based methodology. Each project proposes different forms of engagement, dialogue and relational exchange with the people who contribute to and perform within the pieces. Some extend an on-going enquiry into portraiture as a performative act, others an engagement with and commitment to a particular physical location and its community. Increasingly, the work employs installation and viewing-structures specific to each work to propose different forms of spectatorship; some pieces set up immersive experiences while in others the viewer is invited into a more discursive or active form of looking. Recent shows use the exhibition as a site and/or stage, setting up non-linear forms of structuring the experience of the works.
Her work has been shown nationally and internationally including exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery (London); Towner Art Gallery (Eastbourne); Bloomberg Space (London); Whitechapel Gallery (London); MacVal, Musée d’Art Contemporain (Paris); Photographers Gallery (London);Brooklyn Museum (NY); Australian Museum of Photography (Sydney); Courtauld Institute (London); Museum Folkwang (Essen) and as part of La Nuit Blanche (Paris). Manchot is the recipient of many awards including the Oriel Davies Award 2012.
Manchot received her MA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal College of Art in 1992. Until 2005, she was a lecturerer at many UK art colleges including Goldmsiths College (London) and the University of the Arts (London) and she continues to contribute to conferences and symposia internationally.
Melanie Manchot lives and works in London (UK).