We asked each artist in Cohort 3 a series of questions about how they navigate the world and express themselves through their practice. Here what Marceline's had to say:

Good: When did you first realize that making art was essential to how you move through the world?
Marcelline: My earliest memory is of a drawing I made at five years old of a lady wearing a red dress with two left feet; art has always been essential.

Good: What parts of yourself do you feel most seen in through your work?
Marcelline: People often acknowledge physical characteristics to define the emotions attached to them.

Good: How has your understanding of your identity shaped the way you create?
Marcelline: What I understand to be true about myself and where I come from, at any given moment, shapes the voice I can rely on to carve out space.

Good: What story do you think your younger self needed to see in art—and are you telling that story now?
Marcelline: My younger self needed to see more models of non-traditional nuclear families, which I strive to one day convey.

Good: How do you navigate the tension between visibility and vulnerability in your work?
Marcelline: When navigating the tension between visibility and vulnerability, it’s the invaluable relationships I develop that keep me grounded.

Good: What is a misconception people have about your practice—or you—that your art helps correct?
Marcelline: My practice doesn’t only reflect my subjectivity; more significant things must be addressed.

Good: How do your surroundings—physical, cultural, emotional—show up in your work?
Marcelline: Domestic sites like the kitchen, powder room, and garden are deeply influential as thresholds where the sacred and mundane converge.

Good: If this chapter of your life had a title, what would it be—and how is that reflected in your current work?
Marcelline: After laying the foundation for a house, the next step is framing—and in this context, “framing” requires building discipline.

Good: What truth have you been circling in your work but haven’t said out loud yet?
Marcelline: How do I address the silence around what is endured, to unpack what was inherited even in the absence of speech?

Good: If you had to strip everything back—materials, audience, career—what would remain at the center of your practice?
Marcelline: Movement remains, in spite of.

More about Marcelline:

Born in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Mandeng Nken holds an MFA from the Yale School of Art and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is also an alum of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work centers femininity through choreographic and sculptural installations, and examines how labor traditions are measured and perceived within the Global South.

She has exhibited internationally, with recent shows at Macao Milano (Italy), Judson Memorial Church and The Kitchen (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Mercer Union (Toronto), and MoMA PS1. She was a Dance Research Fellow at the New York Public Library’s Jerome Robbins Dance Division and will soon be in residence at the Goethe-Institut Boston’s Studio 170 and the Vermont Studio Center Fellowship in Johnson, VT.