Sahara Dust (Night)

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

Sahara Dust (Night) is one of two photographs in the Collection from Melanie Manchot’s series White Light Black Snow. The photographs show a shimmering layer of dust resting on the surface of the snow, which had been transported thousands of miles from North Africa. Following major sandstorms in the Sahara in 2014–2016, the desert sand was whipped up into a fine dust and carried to parts of Northern Europe on northerly winds.

White Light Black Snow is Manchot’s first extended body of photographic work in a number of years, since coming to prominence in the 90s. The series builds on earlier projects that responded to the landscape, community and tourism-led economic infrastructure of Engelberg in the Swiss Alps, a village she has visited almost every year for twenty-five years. The series constitutes a photographic investigation into, and meditation upon, the material qualities and conditions of [the colour] white, specifically in relation to snow and ice.

Born in Witten, Germany, Melanie Manchot received her MA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal College of Art in 1992. Until 2005, she was a lecturer at many UK art colleges including Goldsmiths College, London and The University of the Arts, London; she continues to contribute to conferences internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Paris (2019); Art Night, London (2017); Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne (2016); ICA, London (2015); Nuit Blanche, Paris (2011); and Whitechapel Gallery, London (2010). In 2017, Manchot was shortlisted for the Jarman Award by Film London.

Places

Sahara Desert, Africa

Subjects

topography, snow, desert

Materials & Techniques

photograph (as object name), C-type photograph

Artist

Melanie Manchot (1966 - )

Title

Sahara Dust (Night)

Date

2017

Medium

C-Print photograph

Dimensions

height: 39.5 cm, width: 59.8 cm, depth: 3.4 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Parafin, February 2019

Provenance

Parafin, London UK; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 2019

GAC number

18797