The Gift by Melanie Manchot

About

In the television studio of financial data and media organisation Bloomberg, a roundtable debate is in progress. Hosted by writer and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer the debate takes place between Deyan Sudjic, Director of the Design Museum; Susanne Kuechler, Professor of Anthropology and Material Culture at University College London; and Roger Robson, Forensic Advisor and Managing Director of Forensic Access.  On a conveyor belt in front of them an assortment of objects move past - plants, watering cans, a bird’s nest, string, gloves, roller skates, a vinyl record, headphones, violin strings, a circuit board, reels of yarn, thimbles, scissors, needles, buttons, an iron – the tools and materials of the gardeners, musicians and tailors who work in the nearby City of London.  Under discussion is the role and significance of material culture in contemporary life, contrasting the unexpected occupations, and the hidden labour and objects of the City with the intense abstractions of Square Mile trading.

The Gift draws inspiration from the communities that are intrinsic to the City but are also outside its dominant narrative; gardeners from The Friends of City Gardens, students majoring in electronic music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the bespoke tailors of Couch and Hoskin.

The Gift is presented in two spaces; the first replicates a television studio, where visitors become the studio audience, watching a split screen film of the debate, as three monitors showing the conveyor belt of objects, moves game-show style like an endless ticker tape.  The debate is punctuated by sonic portraits of the City, composed by the Guildhall musicians.  The second environment is a museum-like space presenting a selection of the objects, low lit like painterly still-lifes.  On a nearby wall, arranged in rows, are black and white portraits of the gardeners, musicians and tailors of the City, resembling the head shots of actors or employees.

Melanie Manchot’s project concludes The Homecoming series responding to the archaeological, architectural and societal histories of the City of London, and drawing on diverse interpretations of  value. The Gift is a multi-layered exploration of the taxonomy of one of the world's most crucial centres for exchange in terms of real and symbolic currencies and information.

Melanie Manchot is a London based visual artist who works with photography, film, video and installation as part of a performative and participatory practice. Her projects often explore specific sites and public spaces in order to locate notions of individual and collective identities, investigating particular gestures and forms of movement or activities that become the marker of a group or community.  Manchot’s work has been widely exhibited in galleries, museums and film festivals internationally including at Whitechapel Gallery and The Photographers’ Gallery, London; MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow; GoMA, Glasgow; and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Oregon.  Twelve, her multi-channel video installation exploring the intimate stories, rituals, repetitions and ruptures of lives spent in addiction and recovery is currently touring the UK until 2016.