Latest Shape collaboration: melissandre was commissioned to create 'plastic flowers' in 2021. 'les mains de ma mère' (2021), was also part of the 2021 Shape Open, All Bound Together?

Relation, displacement, multiplicity, identity, interdependency, and language emerge from melissandre’s work. Making from an Afro and Caribbean diasporic context, melissandre add layers of complexity using a situated Black feminism. Through poetic performance arts, moving image assemblages, and site-specific installations – among other things – melissandre interrogates how the encounter between bodies that have been marginalised, everyday materials, and institutional spaces transgresses normativity.

Commissioned nationally and internationally, melissandre co-parents two-year-old Eole. They currently work on B.O.O.K, a healing (art, library, rest) station supported by Coventry Biennial; co-organising transnational afrofeminist performances; curating Open Calls as part of Studies in Theatre and Performance; and are an artist-resident and advisory board member at Coventry Artspace.

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Banner image: still from 'les mains de ma mère' (2021), melissandre varin. A hand with curled up fingers rests against a tiled surface.