Melissa Coleman

Melissa Coleman is a current M.F.A. graduate student in the Mass Communication and Media Arts program at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. She got her
B.A. at Eastern Illinois University, where she got her degree in Communication Studies. At Eastern Illinois University, she learned the skills and techniques of
making film, such as the process of film production and the skills of video editing. Here at Southern Illinois University, she has been able to use those skills and
techniques and has learned more on how to make her endeavors in a more artistic way. Her work consists mostly of documentaries that deal with issues of
incarceration, abortion, suicide, and homosexuality, but she has been exploring different mediums such as photography and video installation. With these new
works she is still exploring societal issues, but she is focusing on projects dealing with multi-racial people, the female body, and other aspects of identity. The
exploration into both photography and video installation as new mediums has inspired her to continue in working on issues of identity to share with an audience the specific conflicts, struggles, and stigmas that multi-racial people and females experience through the misrepresentation of these groups in society.