Change, man is a first UK institutional solo exhibition by London-based artist Dana Munro. Presenting interrelated bodies of work that have grown over a decade of practice, Change, man brings together photography, video, painting and song through the spaces of Flat Time House. Munro was a long-term lodger and artist-in-residence at Flat Time House between 2021–22 and, for the first time, Flat Time House’s artist residency space, the former bedroom of John Latham, will be open as part of the exhibition. Reflecting on the embedding of artistic practice within the constraints of everyday life, Munro uses repeated motifs and lyrical refrains to reference socio-political subtexts within the domestic realm.
With a background and training in experimental film, video has always been a key medium for Munro. She worked in the field of documentary making in a career including over two-decades of commercial film production. Footage from this period has been reappropriated in her work as a means of artistic investigation. For Change, man a series of new landscape videos filmed over two summers (2024–5) in London use a similar shooting and editing strategies. The imagery unfolds as a sequence of wandering, handheld shots, observing fragments of everyday life in London. The recurring presence of a buddleia shrub at the centre of each frame, proliferates across the video as a resilient motif. For the artist, the opportunistic behaviour of the plant, responding to spaces left unclaimed by authority or social order is politically resonant, aligning with strategies of artistic survival. Also presented are a series of photographs, produced by Munro during location scouting in Belfast for a TV documentary. Reclaimed as artistic practice, the images pose questions around labour, authorship and intent.
Over recent years Munro has been producing drawings and paintings that explore construction and technique within series. Inspired by art historical approaches to image making, the works incorporate visual allegories for social and political dynamics, reflecting on class and labour through the revelation of folkloric and carnivalesque characters. In recent exhibitions, these paintings have often been accompanied by gigs where song-writing has become an extension of the art. A new song by Munro will be accompanied by lyrics presented as titles or broken sentences, introducing reoccurring themes that climax and ebb towards conclusion. This new recording, Change, will be launched as part of a songbook and EP following the completion of the exhibition.
