Marcelline Mandeng Nken (b. 1993, Yaoundé, Cameroon) is a multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, installation, video, and performance. Her practice explores concepts of syncretism, non-human intelligence, and labor traditions of the Global South. With a background in social work and a matrilineage of nurse practitioners, she frames caretaking as a response to the economic and emotional demands placed on Black women—particularly in spaces shaped by absence and repair. Through choreographic sculptural installations, she examines archetypes of femininity and challenges the endurance expected of feminized labor.
In 2024, Mandeng Nken earned an MFA from the Yale School of Art and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She was a Dance Research Fellow at the New York Public Library’s Jerome Robbins Dance Division, where her research culminated in a performance lecture titled Queening The Knight: Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Vulnerability and Masculinity On Display.
Her work has been shown at Macao Milano (Italy), Judson Memorial Church and The Kitchen (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Karma International (Los Angeles), Mercer Union (Toronto), and MoMA PS1.