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For a film project by artist Melanie Manchot for the Ruhr Ding: Schlaf in 2023, we are looking for people who are typical night workers, for example nurses, cleaners, taxi drivers, shift workers of all kinds...

The new video work by Melanie Manchot is intended to bring together seven locations that are filmed at night, as if in the course of a seven-hour sleep cycle. Between dusk and dawn, "in the shadow of time", seven locals of the Ruhr area take the viewer on a journey through a series of places that are interconnected: through history, economics, politics and the events that shape the post-industrial landscape of the Ruhr area. Through the choice of locations, the work connects the nocturnal with questions about the subterranean, so present in this region with its thousands of kilometres of silent tunnels. In the current planning of the work, the video work consists of long sequences, possibly single shots, each directed by one protagonist. All seven protagonists can be night workers in the broadest sense, including taxi drivers, factory shift workers, bakers, pole dancers, care workers/nurses, night club/bar operators, etc. The participants are to be all (or all not) of them. The participants should all (or mainly) be women, so that the film shines a spotlight on the achievements and significance of women's work, especially since the Ruhr area is both historically and currently strongly characterised by a "man's world".

Melanie Manchot would like to get to know different people in order to identify some protagonists for the research and possibly also for the filming (probably in autumn 2022). If you are interested or know someone in your family, friends or acquaintances who fits the description and is interested in participating, please let us know and send us the relevant contacts. If you have any questions, please contact Daniel Klemm, project manager of Urbane Künste Ruhr: dk@urbanekuensteruhr.de