Riza Manalo is a visual artist of Filipino-French descent who recently moved to South Australia from Melbourne and now living in the regional area on the west bank of the Murray River. Manalo creates work that spans public performance, sound, video, and installation. In her research and practice, she examines the importance of artistic representation of lived experiences in understanding the production of social and cultural meanings in public spaces.
At present, she works in open collaboration with diverse communities, artists, and researchers to explore how experiential performance and engagement plays in constructing identity and shaping public and mind space. Her practice has become increasingly focused on materiality and spatial sensing in relation to memory, body, and transitional spaces. Manalo is interested in arts-based participatory social research practice that reflects on shifts, transitions, and the condition of living between polarities of culture and geography.
Riza Manalo has been exhibiting in solo and group exhibitions since 1994. Her work has been shown in galleries and film screenings internationally, including Smack Mellon, NY; Dumbo Art Centre, NY; P.S. 122, New York; Contemporary Museum of Honolulu; Städtischen Galerie, Germany; New York Film Festival; Rotterdam International Film Festival; Australian Centre for the Moving Image, among others. Her works are held in collections in Australia, Philippines, and U.S.A. She has received a Master of Fine Arts in Art in Public Space and is currently pursuing a PhD in Art focusing on spatial empowerment.