Michael Mendones is a British Filipino musician, producer and film-maker whose work explores the outer edges of human emotion.

Drawing on his lived experience of bipolar disorder, his Arts Council England funded film Oscillations fused his specially composed music, movement (dancers), photography and spoken word to convey Bipolar UK’s 10 point mood scale in order for viewers to gain a deeper understanding of psychosis, severe depression and mania.

His shorter films have embodied themes of female mental health/freedom, domestic violence, joy, sisterhood and grief.

For the be(longing) micro commission, he will employ similar techniques used in ‘Oscillations’ to portray being an ‘alien in his skin’ following his shock late diagnosis of autism, exploring how he never felt he belonged in his family, culture, society in general and any social situation, and how he may have found his ‘tribe’ in other neurodivergent people.

Nina Gross is a London-born artist, currently working in West Sussex. She graduated from West Dean College with a Graduate Diploma in Fine Art in 2023. Working across drawing, printmaking, animation, writing, and installation, her imagery evokes a quiet sense of lack and longing, exploring themes of memory and absence. Her work has previously been selected for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Working Drawing Prize, and Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair. She was Artist in Residence at Downside School 2023-24, where she had her first solo show Where I Dwell.

“I will make three miniature paper spaces from my family home: the living room, hallway, and a bedroom, places of transition and sanctuary, belonging and unbelonging. Lit atmospherically, objects within the rooms will tell their stories. The sculptures will be accompanied by poetic text.”

Follow @ninagrossartist on Instagram.