Utilizing her body in absurd and precarious actions, Melanie Manos walks a tightrope between humor and solemnity to convey the inequities and insecurities of daily life and the systems that perpetuate them. She works in live and mediated performance, video, photography, mixed media drawings and digital collage.

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She won a 2021 Knight Arts Challenge In Detroit Tech Award and a 2020 Kresge Arts in Detroit Award. She's a University of Michigan Center for Academic Innovation 2023 Public Art & Engagement Fellow, and a 2022 Center for World Performance Studies Faculty Fellow. Her massive open online course, "Visualizing Women’s Work Using Art Media for Social Justice" is engaging hundreds of global learners via Coursera.

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Manos’ performance art career began in 1990’s Los Angeles with the feminist duo Too Much Girl, performing in a variety of venues from Santa Monica Museum to punk-glam-drag clubs and alternative/artist-run spaces.

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She collaborates with Sarah Buckius as The ManosBuckius Cooperative (MBC), exhibiting multi-channel installation, photography, and video. MBC videos have appeared in video and electronic art festivals globally in over twenty cities and fifteen countries. New work played at the 2022 Media City Film Festival, Detroit/Windsor and at the 2022 New Media Caucus Future Bodies Symposium.