Efforts of Nature
16 september–12 november 2023

In his first solo-show in Stockholm, London-based artist Morgan Quaintance debuts two new film works unseen in Sweden alongside an installation of still images and printed fabrics. Centering on work that uses the devices of repetition, circularity, and inversion to illicit affective and emotional audience responses, the exhibition Efforts of Nature considers one of the defining existential dualities of contemporary life: the psychological push and pull in awareness and concern between individual mental states and planetary shifts in environmental conditions. Time’s passage, employment rights, the dissolution of the body and the disintegration of polar ice caps are explored through provoked states of expectation, hypnotic sequencing and recursive loops.
The following films will be shown during the exhibition:
Repetitions
Morgan Quaintance | 2022 | UK | 16mm (digital transfer) | 24’ | sound
An exploration of recursive patterns, a series of repeated sequences, flickering images and looping sounds. On the surface, Repetitions concentrates on inducing retinal excitement and states of anticipation, but telephone messages and speech provide a through line that speaks to physical labour and labour rights, industrial work and fragile bodies.
Efforts of Nature
Morgan Quaintance | 2023 | UK | 20’ |16mm and Digital | sound
Combining low resolution footage, 16mm film and satellite imagery, Efforts of Nature considers the passage of time, processes of change and dissolution from two distant perspectives: the existential level of the body and the planetary level of shifting geological conditions.
Morgan Quaintance is known for his work with moving images and sound that explores the lives of individual people and collective cultural, social and political events. He has previously explored socio-cultural themes and has been awarded for his innovative filmmaking. In 2022 he was nominated for the prestigious Jarman Award for experimental film in contemporary art. Morgan Quaintance is also a prolific writer and his writings on contemporary art and aesthetics have appeared in leading publications including the BBC, Art Monthly, Frieze, The Wire and The Guardian. His work has helped to shape the art debate in Britain.
About the artist:
His moving image work has been shown and exhibited widely at festivals and institutions including: MOMA, New York; Mcevoy Foundaton for the Arts, San Francisco; David Dale, Glasgow; European Media Art Festival, Germany; Alchemy Film and Arts Festival, Scotland; Images Festival, Toronto; International Film Festival Rotterdam; and Third Horizon Film Festival, Miami.
He is the 2023 IFFR Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards; in 2022 he was the recipient of the ARTE Award at Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg; in 2021 the Best Documentary Short Film Award at Tacoma Film Festival, USA; the Explora Award at Curtocircuito International Film Festival, Santiago de Compostela; UK Short Film Award at Open City Documentary Film Festival, London, the Jean Vigo Prize for Best Director at Punto de Vista, Spain, and the Best Experimental Film Award at Curtas Vila do Conde, Portugal; in 2020 New Vision Award at CPH:DOX, Denmark and the Best Experimental Film award at Curtas Vila Do Conde, Portugal.
Bilder

