Melanie Friend

Born in London, Friend studied English at the University of York, and Photography at the University of Westminster and the London College of Printing. As a freelance photojournalist in the 1980s, she reported for broadcast and print media such as the World Service, BBC Radio 4, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Economist, and the Financial Times. From the mid-1990s she shifted her focus to longer-term photographic projects, producing work for exhibitions and books. Her book and exhibition Border Country documents the experiences of asylum seekers detained at the UK's Immigration Removal Centres.

Friend is known for using the tension between images and sound to document conflict.The Home Front, Katalog Journal, No.24/1, Spring 2012"[http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/gallery/2008/nov/07/border-country-immigration-removal-centres Border Country]". The Guardian, 7 November 2008 Of Border Country, she writes: "The voices provide an emotional counterpoint to the formal images of the institutions..[prompting the]... listener/viewer to reflect both on the experience of the immigration system itself and on the wider concepts of migration and borders."Friend, M (2010) Representing Immigration Detainees: The Juxtaposition of Image and Sound in "Border Country", Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Vol. 11, No. 2, Art. 33, May

Friend's project The Home Front was nominated in 2012, and again in 2013, for the Prix Pictet, a global award in photography and sustainability.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}}

Standing By, which uses sound & still images, draws us into Friend's parents' 60-year long relationship. It focuses on their daily solving of The Daily Telegraph 'Quick' crossword, undertaken to combat memory loss. For years, Friend thought that her parents' crossword interactions were funny: how her father barked out the clues in mock-Sergeant Major style and her mother quietly came up with the answers. As they grew older and frailer, and her mother's Alzheimer's disease became apparent, the daily routine of the crossword, initiated by her father, felt increasingly crucial both as a memory exercise and a ritual where humour, conversation and banter could happen as before. The first recordings for Standing By were made in the year 2000; the work was completed in 2017.

Friend was a judge for the FotoDocument Awards 2013 and 2014, and is a member of FotoDocument Advisory Panel (2015).{{Cite web|title=Melanie Friend : University of Sussex|url=http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/161021|access-date=2018-03-18|website=sussex.ac.uk}} Since 2017 she has been a judge for the Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award.

• Homes and Gardens: Documenting the Invisible. London: Camerawork, 1996.
• No Place Like Home: Echoes from Kosovo. USA: Midnight Editions, 2001. {{ISBN|978-1573441193}}.
• Border Country. Belfast Exposed Photography/The Winchester Gallery, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0952421795}}.
• The Home Front. Stockport: Dewi Lewis; Bradford: Impressions Gallery, 2013. {{ISBN|978-1-907893-41-4}}.
• The Plain. Stockport: Dewi Lewis, 2020. {{ISBN|978-1-911306-70-2}}.

• "Will the bruises still show?" in: Signals: festival of women photographers Interchange Studios, London, 1994.
• "A Documentary Photographer's strategies of representation" in Homes and Gardens: Documenting the Invisible (1996).
• "Claustrophobia" in: Claustrophobia. Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 1998 {{ISBN|9780907594581}}.
• "John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award" in: "John Kobal photographic portrait award 2000". National Portrait Gallery, London. {{ISBN|9781855143180}}.
• "No Place Like Home: Echoes of Kosovo" (2001), a chapter in Representations of War, Migration and Refugeehood: Interdisciplinary Perspectives published by Routledge, New York, 2014 eds. Christiane Schlote (University of Zurich, Switzerland) & Daniel Rellstab (University of Vaasa, Finland).
• The Plain (a photographic work in progress), in Spaces of War, War of Spaces Bloomsbury 2020, {{ISBN|9781501360305|}}.

• Border Country at Belfast Exposed Photography, Belfast, 16 November 2007 – 11 January 2008.{{Cite web|title=Border Country at Belfast Exposed Reveals UK Detention Centres {{!}} Culture24|url=https://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/art52167|access-date=2020-09-15|website=culture24.org.uk}}
• European Central Bank Europe Photographic Award 2008: finalists' show Cologne and Frankfurt.{{Cite web|date=2008-11-26|title=ECB Annual Photography Award 2008 – Europe|url=https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2008/html/pr081126_3.en.html|access-date=2020-09-15|website=European Central Bank|language=en}}
• Gallery 44, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Toronto (Canada) 10 September – 16 October 2010.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}}
• 2013: Images from The Home Front series in group show at Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art.[http://www.ngca.co.uk/exhibs/default.asp?id=191&prnt=18 Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art].
• 2013 / 2015: The Home Front, An Impressions Gallery touring exhibition, curated by Pippa Oldfield, Impressions Gallery, 2013"[http://www.impressions-gallery.com/exhibitions/exhibition.php?id=57 The Home Front]", Impressions Gallery. Toured to DLI Museum and Art Gallery, Durham, 2014 and University of Hertfordshire Galleries, 14 November 2014 – 31 January 2015.{{Cite web | url=http://www.herts.ac.uk/artsandgalleries | title=Home – University of Hertfordshire Arts}}.
• Relatives Film Festival, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, 8 March 2017.{{Cite web|url=http://events.arts.ac.uk/event/2017/3/8/Relatives-Film-Festival/|title=Relatives: Film Festival|last=Team|publisher=University of Arts London, Web|website=events.arts.ac.uk|access-date=2018-03-18}}.
• Images from The Home Front in A Green and Pleasant Land: British Landscape and the Imagination: 1970s to Now, Towner Art Gallery, UK, 30 September 2017 – 21 January 2018.{{cite web |url=https://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/exhibition/a-green-and-pleasant-land/. |title=A Green and Pleasant Land {{!}} Towner Art Gallery |website=townereastbourne.org.uk |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170909213716/http://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/exhibition/a-green-and-pleasant-land/ |archive-date=2017-09-09}}
• 2017/2018 Ryerson Artspace, Toronto, Canada, 5 – 29 September 2018, in conjunction with Gallery 310, School of Image Arts, University of Ryerson, Toronto, Canada 16 – 29 September 2018.https://cargocollective.com/ryersonartspace/The-Home-Front. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210521081646/https://cargocollective.com/ryersonartspace/The-Home-Front |date=21 May 2021 }}
• Images from The Home Front in Generation War, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles County, USA, 15 June – 24 August 24, 2019.{{Cite web|url=http://www.torranceartmuseum.com/generation-war|title=Generation War|website=Torrance Art Museum}}
• The Home Front at Farleys Gallery, UK, 10 September – 29 October 2020{{Cite web|title=The Home Front|url=https://www.farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk/exhibitions/the-home-front/|access-date=2020-09-15|website=Farleys House and Gallery|language=en-GB}}

Friend's work is held in the following permanent collections:

• National Portrait Gallery, London: 1 print (as of January 2019){{cite web|accessdate=2019-01-24|title=Melanie Friend|url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?LinkID=mp122700&search=sas&sText=melanie+friend&OConly=true&displayStyle=thumb|website=National Portrait Gallery}}
• The Hyman Collection (British Photography): 1 print (as of March 2019){{cite web|accessdate=2019-03-10|title=Melanie Friend – Artists – Hyman Collection – British Photography|url=http://www.britishphotography.org/artists/17713/melanie-friend|website=britishphotography.org}}
• Science Museum Group (National Science and Media Museum): 3 prints (as of March 2019){{Cite web|url=https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/cp134475/melanie-friend|title=Melanie Friend | Science Museum Group Collection|website=collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk}}

{{reflist}}

• {{official website|www.melaniefriend.com}}
• [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17514517.2015.1078534?journalCode=rfpc20 A portfolio of The Home Front images, together with article], the journal Photography & Culture (Routledge, Vol.8, Issue 3, Nov. 2015 & online in Feb. 2016)
• [http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n2001-30304 WorldCat for Friend]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Friend, Melanie}}

Category:1957 births

Category:Living people

Category:English women photographers

Category:20th-century British photographers

Category:21st-century British photographers

Category:21st-century British women photographers

Category:20th-century English women artists

Category:21st-century English women artists

Category:Alumni of the University of York

Category:Alumni of the University of Westminster

Category:Alumni of the London College of Communication

Category:Photographers from London

Category:20th-century British women photographers