melissandre varin

melissandre is working with Eastside Projects and a constellation of collaborators to develop les ongles noirs (dirty nails), an invitation to play, hum, express rage, throw soil on white walls, pray, mourn, dance, lament, grieve, sit with ourselves, rock, reorient, touch and be moved by the unknown

melissandre varin is an undisciplined atmosphere maker investigating love, intimacy, and tenderness from an Afro and Caribbean diasporic context. Relation, displacement, multiplicity, interdependency, and language emerge from their work.⁠ Commissioned across borders, melissandre co-parents 4 years old Eole. They are based in Birmingham.

They are co-founder of two collectives, B.O.O.K (Building Our Own Knowledge) and Papaya (cross-border afro-feminist collective), contributing in various ways including as working group member, artist-curator, writer and performer. They also programme Open Call, a re-distribution vehicle for performance artist-researchers as part of Studies in Theatre and Performance journal.

melissandre is someone who is in love (too).

melissandre is working with us as an Incidental Artist