Bringing together nine iconic locations filmed at night as if over the course of a sleep cycle, this new video-work consists of long, single-shot sequences, each guided by one female protagonist. Between dusk and dawn, ‘in the shadows of time’, these women, who all perform night-time labour, take us on a tour of sites linked by history, economics and events shaping the post-industrial landscape of the Ruhr region in Germany. Known for its coal mining history, the region has long been dominated by stories of male achievements. Hence the work aims to celebrate the everyday contributions of a group of cross-generational local women, amongst them a tram-driver, a factory-worker, a baker, a pole dancer, a nurse and a wold-champion wrestler. It aims to address and question socio-political assumptions that shape our views on equitable futures. Filmed in low-contrast infrared, Liquid Skin crosses the dreamlike counterlogic of Lynchian film with spaces that may evoke Lang’s Metropolis or drawings by Escher. Sound significantly shapes the work, referring to the industrial, technological and subterranean sounds of each space. I constructed the soundtrack from field recordings captured in each location but used in a non-diegetic way that consciously avoids synch sound.
Biography
Award-winning artist and filmmaker Melanie Manchot employs photography, film, video and sound to makes work for cinematic and art-world distribution. Her moving image works, shown in galleries and museums across the world, operate on the cross section of documentary and narrative fiction to investigate how fact, fiction and observation offer strategies for speaking about our shifting place in an increasingly mediated world. Manchot tells deeply affecting stories that speak about complex social and political issues. Her films come alive through their striking cinematography and innovative use of sound. Her work is held in many public collections and was recently presented in a major survey show at Museum MAC/VAL, Paris. Selected recent solo exhibitions: 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 (2018), Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne (2016); fig-2 at the ICA, London, (2015); Galerie M, Bochum (2015); Toronto Photography Festival (2012); Nuit Blanche, Paris (2011) and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2010). Her films have screened at several film festivals including recently at the Locarno Film Festival, Aesthetica, Raindance and Videonale.