Melanie Manchot employs photography, film, video and sound to form a sustained enquiry into how we negotiate and construct our individual and collective identities.
2023 Biennial Year Find out more
Performance-to-camera, reconstruction and participation as well as location-based research are recurring methodologies. Photographic series and moving image works – both single screen and multi-channel installations – operate on the cross section of documentary, staged events and narration to investigate how fact, fiction and observation offer strategies for speaking about our shifting place in an increasingly mediated world. Manchot has recently completed for her first feature film, STEPHEN, commissioned by Liverpool Biennial. The film will premiere at Sheffield DocFest in June and is shown at the biennial as a multi-channel installation. She has also produced a new video commission for Urbane Künste Ruhr in Germany, where it is currently exhibited alongside a solo museum show.
Her work is held in many public collections and was recently presented in a major survey show at museum MAC/VAL, Paris. Manchot is represented by Parafin, London and Galerie m, Bochum.
Selected recent solo exhibitions: Dancing is the best revenge, Märkisches Museum, Witten Germany; Alpine Diskomiks, Parafin, London, 2022; Black Snow White Out, Museum Lumen, Italy, 2021; Mountainworks (Montafon), InnSitu, Innsbruck, Austria (2019); Open Stage/Back Stage, Kunsthaus Pasquart, Switzerland (2019); Open Ended Now, MAC VAL, Paris, France, Art Night London (2018).
Liverpool Biennial 2023
'STEPHEN' (2023)
This installation of STEPHEN intentionally blurs the lines between fact and fiction to address urgent social issues of mental health, addictions and isolation, as well as the power of collective creativity.
The project reinterprets the true story of Thomas Goudie, a bank clerk at the Bank of Liverpool who was caught embezzling money to support his gambling addiction. Goudie’s arrest became the subject of the world’s first crime-reconstruction to camera: ‘The Arrest of Goudie’, by filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon in Liverpool in 1901.
Manchot has worked with longstanding collaborator Stephen Giddings, who lends his name to the title of the film and plays the lead role. The work is made with a mixed cast of professional actors and local people from the
This installation of STEPHEN intentionally blurs the lines between fact and fiction to address urgent social issues of mental health, addictions and isolation, as well as the power of collective creativity. The project reinterprets the true story of Thomas Goudie, a bank clerk at the Bank of Liverpool who was caught embezzling money to support his gambling addiction. Goudie’s arrest became the subject of the world’s first crime-reconstruction to camera: ‘The Arrest of Goudie’, by filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon in Liverpool in 1901. Manchot has worked with longstanding collaborator Stephen Giddings, who lends his name to the title of the film and plays the lead role. The work is made with a mixed cast of professional actors and local people from the recovery community. Stephen, who portrays both Goudie and himself, draws on his own experiences of addiction recovery in a story that entangles lived and acted realities. Manchot has worked with the participants to showcase a selection of supporting footage within the installation, which foregrounds the production process, character development and cast relationships. ‘STEPHEN’ is a major new video project, commissioned by Liverpool Biennial. Production began in 2019 with a series of workshops held in Liverpool with people in recovery and will culminate with screenings of the film in community settings with local stakeholders providing and engaging in addiction recovery services. Following Liverpool Biennial, the film will join the permanent collection of the Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool. Courtesy of the artist, Stephen Film Ltd., Parafin London and Galerie m, Bochum. Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, with support from Art Fund, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, NNMHR – Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research Seed Scheme, Doc Society through the BFI and Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen. With thanks to Arts Council England and University of Liverpool.
'STEPHEN' (2023)
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Melanie Manchot, STEPHEN, 2023. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Tobacco Warehouse. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Mark McNulty
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Melanie Manchot, STEPHEN, 2023. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Tobacco Warehouse. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Mark McNulty
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Melanie Manchot, STEPHEN, 2023. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Tobacco Warehouse. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Mark McNulty
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Melanie Manchot, STEPHEN, 2023. Courtesy Parafin, London and Galerie m, Bochum. Image credit: Melanie Manchot/Andrew Schonfelder.
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Melanie Manchot, STEPHEN, 2023. Courtesy Parafin, London and Galerie m, Bochum. Image credit: Melanie Manchot/Andrew Schonfelder.
