Skip to main content

n:u

Birmingham
n:u (formerly known as melissandre varin) is an atmosphere-maker interrogating intimacy, embodiment, and healing as pathways to liberation.
Contact
Links

n:u (formerly known as melissandre varin) is an atmosphere-maker interrogating intimacy, embodiment, and healing as pathways to liberation. They create with companion-materials, artworkers, and cultural spaces to unearth transformative ways to experience change. n:u draws inspiration from natural and built environments, Black feminisms, and spiritual practices. Intuitively, their work calls in freedom, loving environments, and alternative world-building.

n:u has collaborated with Eastside Projects, Ban Workshop, and Coventry Biennial among others. n:u has created the vision for a number of initiatives such as les ongles noirs (dirty nails), B.O.O.K supporting Black artists in the UK, and Open Call commissioning and redistributing resources to artist-researchers. n:u has contributed to exhibitions, talks/workshops, and performance programmes at institutions including Brunel University, Ikon Gallery, and FABRIC among others. They have been invited to residencies such as artikulationsprozesse, PAE Aktionslabor (DE), KutlturFabrik (LU), Our Teaching Takes Shape As We Go, international project Africa/UK: Transforming Art Ecologies (MA), and is currently a MAIA Fellow (GB). They were a nominated Recipient of the Henry Moore Artist Award 2022, and Coventry Artspace in Action award 2020.

 

MILK is an (im)possible endeavour from an exiled-being to produce and transmit the precious elixir of one’s culture(s), punctured by ancestral knowledge passed down by generations. MILK is a fermenting sculpture in 62 preserve jars made seasonally between 2022 and 2024 with the materials inside slowly energetically charging.

After completing this work, n:u had a moment of recognition that  their mother/Dani, who died 20 years before, was born in 1962…

MILK

Become a member

We support our members with: insurance, networks, space, opportunities, R&D awards, profiling, advice and mentoring.
Become a member

Join the UK’s Leading Artist Community

Be part of a caring, mutual aid network. Connect with fellow artists and access insurance, space, opportunities, and support to grow your practice.

Become a Member