Dana Munro at Flat Time House
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 with bold interventions to the spaces of the house and gallery.
For the first time, Flat Time House’s artist residency space is open as part of the exhibition. For the opening event, visitors enter through a separate private access and begin the show in the usually intimate space, John Latham’s former bedroom. Munro was a long-term lodger and artist-in-residence at Flat Time House between 2021–22. Her work reflects on the embedding of artistic practice within the constraints of everyday life. By including the FTHo bedroom in Change, man she shares the domestic experience of living in Latham’s house.
Beginning in the bedroom, there are two large watercolour paintings Youth and Aesop, a bedsheet work with reproductions of paintings, some included elsewhere in the exhibition and a video work. When artists are in residence and lying on this bed their focal point is the skylight, covered in years of accumulating lichen. In the manner of a passer-by writing ‘clean me’ onto a dirty van, Munro has cleaned the name of the show onto this window. In the wardrobe is the video work Flats. It was recorded with a handheld video camera 20 years ago by Dana’s then partner, documenting flat hunting in London for her to review. Changes to our living circumstances can be so gradual it can be hard to see in the moment, but with a longer view, the effect of broad societal and economic shifts on our domestic lives is striking.
Taking care to mind ones footing on the spiral staircase, at the top and bottom are a series of new paintings. A series of eight, titled collectively Change, man, is in the facing hallway. 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. For Munro the watercolour medium dictates an almost automatic painting style, intuitive yet fast and decisive. The paintings presented here draw on myriad references: Seurat’s use of social subjects and development of pointillism as a new way of working; Hugo Gellert’s interpretation of Aesop fables; Paelolithic man; male-female dynamics and Sci-Fi. These watercolour paintings, backed on paper from previous failed works, use repeated motifs to emphasise socio-political subtexts within the domestic realm.
Munro’s time at FTHo was her first opportunity to live alone and the privacy gave her the confidence to experiment with singing. Song has since gone on to become an integral part of her practice with gigs and song-writing becoming an extension of the art, often performed alongside her painting. In the kitchen of FTHo, Munro presents a new song recorded in one take. Change, leans into an American Primitive style with improvised lyrics overlayed by field recordings of Borough Market. This new recording will be launched as part of a songbook and EP at FTHo at a future date.
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. A series of photographs from this time are presented in the front gallery and the office. Produced by Munro during location scouting in Belfast for a TV documentary they are here reclaimed as artistic practice, the images pose questions around labour, authorship and intent.
Munro has made two new landscape videos for Change, man presented in the front and rear galleries. Filmed over two summers (2024–26) in London they use 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. Flowers from the plant are presented in vases in the conservatory and kitchen. 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 ofartistic survival.
A final gesture by Munro, Bench, was to bring an old, hugely overgrown seating from the FTHogarden into the gallery. The process killed much of the overgrowth, but green shoots have emerged and lavender flowers remain, speaking to the resilience of life.
