Mana Contemporary is pleased to present, The You Voice, a nine-channel video installation by filmmaker Derrick Belcham. This powerful work explores the often-contradictory inner voice that both drives and stalls creativity and personal agency. Filmed in black and white, nine performers speak directly and candidly to the camera. Using texts drawn from journals and memories, the nine actresses perform characterizations of this voice, their own self-critic. By inviting an audience to engage with them in a physical space, their individual thoughts are universalized, transforming self-criticism into a practical process of work creation and exhibition.

Each actress is filmed against a stark, black background with a single soft light source that flutters on and off in a sound-reactive relationship to the volume of the speakers’ voices. Each performs three pages of material in a single long take, referred in the film and theater industry as an “impossible monologue,” in order to elicit authentic emotion and capture improvisation based on the material. They speak in their native languages of either English, Spanish or German.

Created during the pandemic, this work meaningfully grapples with the isolation, grief, hope, and revelation that we, as a society, both collectively and individually, experienced. Visitors to The You Voice may determine for themselves whether these monologues are meant as soliloquies, confessions, or invitations into intimate conversations. By courageously sharing their vulnerabilities, the performers foster connection and resilience with the audience.