Baltic Bites | Hannah Perry

In this short film artist Hannah Perry discusses her new exhibition Manual Labour.

Hannah Perry presents a major body of new work for our Level 4 gallery that considers labour, motherhood and class. An immersive environment comprising film, sculpture, print and sound, the exhibition explores the process of becoming a mother, and its creative and destructive power.

Perry is known for her psychologically-charged installations that explore industry, class and gender. Her chosen materials, from steel to car lacquer and body wrap, are associated with manual occupations in manufacturing and industry. Perry’s work captures the effects of economic forces, and shifting cultural and social values, on our mental health.

The exhibition 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 motherhood. 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.