John Hansard Gallery is proud to launch a major new solo exhibition of works by renowned artist and filmmaker Melanie Manchot.
In Darkness and Light brings together selected works (many showing in the UK for the first time) that collectively represent the significant range and breadth of Manchot’s practice.
Melanie Manchot works primarily in photography, film and installation as part of a participatory practice that foregrounds performance to camera. Often working with groups or communities, her film work has increasingly operated at the intersection between documentary and fiction, creating expanded portraits of people and their life experiences.
In three recent works, Manchot highlights both historical inequities and the present-day realities of female workers. Flotilla (2023) was filmed with a group of local women on the waters of the Royal Docks in London, taking inspiration from historic women’s protests in and around the docks to address the lack of rights and parity across wide sections of society.
Both Golden Girls and Liquid Skin (2023) reference the role women play across a wide range of different nighttime economies. From tram-drivers to nurses, factory workers to pole dancers, they reveal the hidden worlds in which female labour continues to play such a crucial role. Filmed across multiple urban locations, the films are intimate portraits of how women occupy space and assert themselves and their roles within these environments.
Two further works, Line of Sight (2025) and Inversions (The Alps) (2021–ongoing), continue Manchot’s investigation into sites of interaction between humanity and nature. Both works are made within snow covered mountainous regions: remote locations which can carry hidden histories and feel hostile to human habitation. Situated alongside, the Inversions photographic series sees Manchot position herself within the natural structures and architecture of the environment, using her own body to draw sightlines and create structural interventions of her own.
Manchot’s photographic practice references the history of feminist performance photography; situating the figure in both urban and mountain landscapes to examine the relationship between the female body (her own), place and environment.
The final space is dedicated to Manchot’s critically acclaimed first feature film, STEPHEN (2023). Originally commissioned for the Liverpool Biennale in 2023, STEPHEN is a hybrid fiction documentary produced with a cast of people in addiction/recovery, alongside four professional actors. Using scripted drama, observation and interviews, the film follows Stephen Giddings on a transformative journey to understand himself by way of a fictional character. Both hard-hitting and deeply affecting, the film presents alternative perspectives on urgent social questions including gambling, alcohol/drug misuse and mental health. Shown alongside STEPHEN are multiple short films which, through a series of monologues and auditions, introduce the characters and the people who play them.
In Darkness and Light is a John Hansard Gallery exhibition.
STEPHEN was commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, NNMHR – Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research Seed Scheme and Doc Society through the BFI. Liquid Skin was commissioned by Britta Peters, Urbane Künste Ruhr for Ruhr Ding 2023. Flotilla was commissioned by the Royal Docks Team in collaboration with Invisible Dust.