Melanie Manchot is a German artist who lives in London, working in photography and video, Her work examines relations between the individual and the parameters of public space, both socially and culturally constructed. Exhibitions include Love Is a Stranger, a 2001 video installation documenting her solicitation of kisses from people randomly encountered on the street. For The L.A. Pictures (2000), the kiss figures at a voyeuristic distance. Manchot’s most powerful work involves at all levels “intimacy”. In a series of color photographs (over 4 by 6 feet), Liminal Portraits (1999-2000), the artist exposes the vulnerable, naked body of her mother. Her most recent works, Stories from Russia, include 3 projects produced in Moscow over the past 3 years. Manchot studied at New York University, New York from 1988-1989, and from 1990-1992 at the Royal College of Art, London. Her works have been widely shown in the U.S and in Europe. She has recently participated in the First Moscow Biennale, Russia (2005) and she is currently working towards a new publication for 2006. Her solo exhibitions include: 1999 Look at you loving me, Poster Project, Bucknell University, USA; Galerie Fiebig, Berlin, Germany; 2000 Intimate Distance, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, England ; 2001 Just one kiss?, Rhodes + Mann Gallery, London, England; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon, USA; Staedtische Galerie, Wolfsburg, Germany; University of Illinois Art Gallery, USA. 2002/3 Deutsches Museum, Berlin/ Museum Bochum, Germany; Courtauld Institute, London, England; 2004 Institute of Contemporary Art, London, England; 2005 Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia, Detroit International Film + Video Festival, The Museum of New Art, Detroit, USA. Her publications include: Love is a stranger, monograph, Prestel Verlag, Muenchen, Germany, 2001; Look at you loving me, monograph, Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel, Switzerland, 1998; Vile Bodies, Prestel Verlag, Muenchen, Germany, 1998.