Melanie Manchot pushes the traditional boundaries of portraiture through photography, performance, film, and video. By coaxing people into contrived scenarios and often capturing them on hidden cameras, Manchot seeks to force her subjects to reveal themselves unwittingly. She sees her practice as a probing of the norms surrounding public performances of gender and other identities. “[My] work employs performative strategies to chart gestures, moments of transformation or personal rituals through which my subjects collaborate,” she has said. “Gender issues, the body as a site of subjectivity, and cultural constructions of identity have been recurring themes.”