Gasworks presents Mémoires des corps [embodied memories], the first UK solo exhibition by Paris-based artist Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien. Self-describing as a “storyteller with mediums,” Marie-Claire works with textile, drawing, sculpture, video-performance and installation to explore how ideas of femininity and the cosmos intersect across cultures, generations and materials.
In Marie-Claire’s varied practice, artworks become complex maps of plural identities and diverse ecosystems. Her work is deeply influenced by the cultures that make up her identity. She grew up in Cote d’Ivoire where she learned traditional manual craft techniques from a young age alongside her mother and grandmother. In 2004, during the First Ivorian Civil War, Marie-Claire moved with her family to Paris, where she has lived since.
For her exhibition at Gasworks, Marie-Claire reflects on the traumas experienced by women from former French colonies and how those traumas echo through generations. Mémoires des corps was developed at Gasworks earlier in 2025 and follows the birth of her first child in late 2024. The exhibition imagines the gallery space as a body, one that both witnesses and traces diverse cultural histories as well as offering moments of reverential healing.
