Melanie Menard

I work across photography, video, digital, and performance. My main interests are the tensions between the individual and the place and circumstances they inhabit (alienation, psychogeography), and the human mind in conflict with itself (delusions, obsessions). My photographs are taken using available light and minimal post-processing. My videos are precisely composed and edited in order to achieve a coherent cinematic mood that traps the viewer inside a particular subjective experience.

In past projects Ghost House and Disciplinary Institutions, I depicted abandoned empty spaces as psychologically charged by looking for traces of their long gone inhabitants. Ghost House explored abandoned houses in Ireland and reflected on Catholicism and rural exodus. Disciplinary Institutions (after Michel Foucault) explored places where people were made obedient through the pre-emptive repression of any deviation from the norm (mental asylums, Magdalene laundries, workhouses). In newer work-in-progress, I am branching into portraits, performance and narrative film to explore individuals' unique relationship with gender roles, and how it may relate to their yearnings and aspirations.

I hold a MA Digital Arts with Distinction from Camberwe...

Camberwell College of Arts '11 MA Visual Arts (Digital Arts) - Distinction.

2013
Pride in the House 2013, Lauderdale House. Winner of solo show for 2014.
Brighton Pride short film compilation, Eyes Wide Open, Dukes at Komedia.
Experimental Film Festival Portland
2012
In Paradisum, RichMix, London
Site Festival, SVA, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
2011
NEOutopia, City-bound collective.
Onedotzero Cascade presentation, Adventures in Motion Festival, BFI, London.
Brighton Photo Fringe Open '11 texts project.
Optica festival, Madrid, Spain & Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Camberwell College of Arts MA Digital Arts 2011 Show.
Open, New Gallery, Peckam, London.
Open Photography 2, Royal West of England Academy.
2010
Electrofringe festival, Festival of electronic arts and culture, Newcastle, Australia.
Last Friday Shorts, Southend on Sea.
Long Exposure and Ghost Houses, joint exhibition at Norwich Arts Centre.
The Women’s Art Show, Fairfields Arts Centre, Basingstoke, UK.
The Photographer’s Gallery London online show “An idea of home”.
2009
FILE Electronic Arts festival, Sao Paulo, Brazil (Hypersonica)
Facing the Future Open Photography - Elysium Gallery, Swansea.
The Women’s Art Show, Fairfields Arts Centre, Basingstoke, UK.
2008
Art in Woodstock festival, The Oxfordshire Museum, Woodst...