Quinn

Quinn is a multi-media art project, realised over a six-year period from 2014-2020. It follows on from the artist’s previous work on exploring the artistic and photographic representation of memory and of historical and personal past moments, and the philosophical understanding of conflict and our collective past. Following work such as that by Joel Sternfeld (On This Site, 1996), Broomberg and Chanarin The Day That Nobody Died, 2008), Chloe Dewe Matthews (Shot At Dawn, 2014), and Larson Shindelman (Geolocation, 2009-16) and works of literature (Paul Auster, New York Trilogy, 1987), Quinn represents a major progression in Davies’ work, incorporating for the first time written narrative, installation and collected ephemera as well as large-format photographs and moving image works.
The work addresses the questions of how individual humans and human society as a whole respond to trauma, loss and grief. Each generation experiences changes imposed by conflict, environmental events and global socio-economic upheavals, leaving a stream of people either literally travelling alone or in groups or families to rebuild their place in the world, or individually attempting to overcome personal tragedy or misfortune. Quinn explores both psychological and physical responses to these, and asks whether landscape and time can be used as a tool for understanding, reconciliation and potential recovery. It is a meditation on the human search for meaning and the possibility of redemption.
Quinn has been created to take the viewer through a multi-dimensional experience; much like reading a novel, visiting the theatre, and going to the cinema at the same time.
The project has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at FORMAT International Photography Festival in Derby, UK (March 2019) and at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, UK (February – May 2020), and at a screening and performance at Photo London, Somerset House May 2019.