Hannah Perry: In Conversation

Perry is known for her psychologically-charged installations that explore industry, class and gender. Her work captures the effects of economic forces, and shifting cultural and social values, on our mental health.

Manual Labour is an immersive environment that includes a choreographed mechanical sculpture which considers the physical act of labour. The work captures the beauty and struggle of the transition in the sculpture’s brutal, constrained power. 

The film explores the questions posed by the transition into parenthood. Jumping through personal and shared memory, the work exploits the material and textural qualities of the medium. Reflected images, spoken elements and soaring sound reflect the complex layering of the process.

Together, the works in Manual Labour evoke the dizzying and disorientating aspects of transitional periods in life, their potential to shatter our ideas of ‘self’ and the work of rebuilding identity.