Morgan Quaintance

A solarised drift across country and the unconscious.

An exercise in observing repetition, following patterns and deciphering loops. Drawing focus through the lull of recurring images and repeating sounds, a clearer image emerges of industrialised labour and the vulnerable bodies of those performing it. This film finds a rhythm, much a like a machine, to manifest the misgivings of the working class.

no sound, loop

An ongoing series of short shorts that are all under four minutes long. Each explore a single formal, conceptual or structural idea. The process of realisation can either be loose and improvisatory, or time intensive and heavily edited. Each of the films use footage shot with a DV camera, mini VHS or High 8 video camera. Using cheaper and handheld mediums, instead of 16mm (or a larger, more expensive HD digital camera), allows for a quicker, more intuitive and playful approach to production.

What kind of power is accessible through the discovery of a voice? Morgan Quaintance interlinks two anti-racist and anti-authoritarian liberation movements in South London and Chicago’s South Side with his own biography to explore what happens when speech is ignored, and the voice fades.

The film explores notions of home and belonging in contemporary society. Comprising interviews with workers at the Edo Tokyo Open Air Architecture Museum in Tokyo, and fragments of conversations with renters in that city and London, a productive dialectic opens between the museum’s preserved historical ideal of the domestic and the often unsettling realities of temporary accommodation in modern cities. Combining trademark immersive sound design with impressionistic images and abstractions, Quaintance crafts an austere, oneiric and subtly affecting portrait of residential precarity.

A solarised drift across country and the unconscious.

An exercise in observing repetition, following patterns and deciphering loops. Drawing focus through the lull of recurring images and repeating sounds, a clearer image emerges of industrialised labour and the vulnerable bodies of those performing it. This film finds a rhythm, much a like a machine, to manifest the misgivings of the working class.

no sound, loop

An ongoing series of short shorts that are all under four minutes long. Each explore a single formal, conceptual or structural idea. The process of realisation can either be loose and improvisatory, or time intensive and heavily edited. Each of the films use footage shot with a DV camera, mini VHS or High 8 video camera. Using cheaper and handheld mediums, instead of 16mm (or a larger, more expensive HD digital camera), allows for a quicker, more intuitive and playful approach to production.

What kind of power is accessible through the discovery of a voice? Morgan Quaintance interlinks two anti-racist and anti-authoritarian liberation movements in South London and Chicago’s South Side with his own biography to explore what happens when speech is ignored, and the voice fades.

What kind of power is accessible through the discovery of a voice? Morgan Quaintance interlinks two anti-racist and anti-authoritarian liberation movements in South London and Chicago’s South Side with his own biography to explore what happens when speech is ignored, and the voice fades.

What kind of power is accessible through the discovery of a voice? Morgan Quaintance interlinks two anti-racist and anti-authoritarian liberation movements in South London and Chicago’s South Side with his own biography to explore what happens when speech is ignored, and the voice fades.

The film explores notions of home and belonging in contemporary society. Comprising interviews with workers at the Edo Tokyo Open Air Architecture Museum in Tokyo, and fragments of conversations with renters in that city and London, a productive dialectic opens between the museum’s preserved historical ideal of the domestic and the often unsettling realities of temporary accommodation in modern cities. Combining trademark immersive sound design with impressionistic images and abstractions, Quaintance crafts an austere, oneiric and subtly affecting portrait of residential precarity.

The film explores notions of home and belonging in contemporary society. Comprising interviews with workers at the Edo Tokyo Open Air Architecture Museum in Tokyo, and fragments of conversations with renters in that city and London, a productive dialectic opens between the museum’s preserved historical ideal of the domestic and the often unsettling realities of temporary accommodation in modern cities. Combining trademark immersive sound design with impressionistic images and abstractions, Quaintance crafts an austere, oneiric and subtly affecting portrait of residential precarity.

The proposed metaphysical highs of psychedelic drugs versus the harsh actualities of concrete metropolitan life. These two opposing realities form the backdrop of an adolescent encounter in the city of London, told through still images and written narration.

The proposed metaphysical highs of psychedelic drugs versus the harsh actualities of concrete metropolitan life. These two opposing realities form the backdrop of an adolescent encounter in the city of London, told through still images and written narration.

The proposed metaphysical highs of psychedelic drugs versus the harsh actualities of concrete metropolitan life. These two opposing realities form the backdrop of an adolescent encounter in the city of London, told through still images and written narration.

A portrait of Jamaican-born artistic polymath Barbara Samuels. Featuring an account of her first generation, diasporic experience in Southend and London, and her discovery of hippiedom and the personal freedoms offered by entry into creative life.

A portrait of Jamaican-born artistic polymath Barbara Samuels. Featuring an account of her first generation, diasporic experience in Southend and London, and her discovery of hippiedom and the personal freedoms offered by entry into creative life.

A montage of 1990s-era archival video and recent footage, exhuming cultural debates from history’s grave to re-animate a once-promised future, still to arrive.

A montage of 1990s-era archival video and recent footage, exhuming cultural debates from history’s grave to re-animate a once-promised future, still to arrive.

A montage of 1990s-era archival video and recent footage, exhuming cultural debates from history’s grave to re-animate a once-promised future, still to arrive.

Walking Distance uses footage of Mount Fuji from Quaintance’s personal archive. It combines this material with an exploration of the distances covered and locations visited during a period of research and production in Tokyo during April 2024.

Numerology. 2023. Great Britain. Directed by Morgan Quaintance. 3 min.

Bataaxalu Ndakaaru (Letter from Dakar) surveys aspects of the vibrant grass roots arts and culture scene in the Senegalese capital of Dakar. Highlighting the difference between the openess and innovation of community run spaces versus the staid professionalism of established galleries and museums, the film offers the first critical look at the much touted Museum of Black Civilisations.

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.

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.

Palace. 2022. Great Britain. Directed by Morgan Quaintance. 3 min.

RIP, Rollostraat 18 and Sixth Form Acid are all part of a series of ‘miniature’ films that Quaintance is continually producing. These short films are all under three minutes long and allow the filmmaker to explore a single formal or conceptual idea. The process of realisation can either be loose and improvisatory or time intensive and heavily edited. Each of the films uses either archival material, or footage Quaintance has shot using a DV of High 8 video camera. Using these mediums, instead of 16mm, allows for quicker production and a more intuitive approach.

RIP, Rollostraat 18 and Sixth Form Acid are all part of a series of ‘miniature’ films that Quaintance is continually producing. These short films are all under three minutes long and allow the filmmaker to explore a single formal or conceptual idea. The process of realisation can either be loose and improvisatory or time intensive and heavily edited. Each of the films uses either archival material, or footage Quaintance has shot using a DV of High 8 video camera. Using these mediums, instead of 16mm, allows for quicker production and a more intuitive approach.

Strawberries is part of a series of ‘miniature’ films that Quaintance is continually producing. These short films are all under three minutes long and allow the filmmaker to explore a single formal or conceptual idea. The process of realisation can either be loose and improvisatory or time intensive and heavily edited. Each of the films uses either archival material, or footage Quaintance has shot using a DV of High 8 video camera. Using these mediums, instead of 16mm, allows for quicker production and a more intuitive approach.

Seeikokan III is a direct animation work using ephemera and excess 16mm footage from the production of Available Light.

“Forever Prisoner”, mixed media

Morgan Quaintance

no sound, loop

What effect does a lapse in memory have on a person? Or on an entire nation? Missing Time investigates the theme of amnesia as experienced by an individual or an entire country. Stories of alien abduction, hypnosis and decolonisation weave together to prod the depths of the lacunas in our minds.

A short trip from the Ethiopian town of Lalibela, Yemrehana Krestos is a church embedded inside a large and deep mountain cave. There are various legends told to account for the large number of decaying cadavers and human skeletons laid behind a wire fence. One of which is the spontaneous death of 10,000 pilgrims upon arrival at the site over a century ago.

no sound, loop

An installation echoing post-election billboard vandalism in Dakar, Senegal.

stereo sound, loop

Voices from the past haunt A Human Certainty, whose entangled threads link its multifarious narratives of suffering: a recent break-up; the romantic sweep of mid-century pop music; Weegee’s crime-scene photography; and images taken by the artist’s grandmother, a spirit medium, on her travels in Asia and Africa. Here, Quaintance’s montage becomes a codec for assembling these disparate threads, and for making sense of mortality and loss in all its forms.

Letter from Tokyo is a documentary film that looks at art, culture and politics in Tokyo, Japan. Shot over three months during the summer of 2018, and with a particular focus on grass roots arts initiatives, the use of public space, and queer politics, the film provides a snapshot of Japan’s capital in the run up to the 2020 olympics.

The Miniatures are an ongoing series of compact films Morgan Quaintance is continually producing. These short shorts are all under four minutes long and allow Quaintance to explore a single formal or conceptual idea.

Commissioned for S-AIR’s 2020 residency programme, Letter from Sapporo (2021) is a collage film offering a glimpse of daily life in the Japanese city of Sapporo. The film is the product of approximately 16 participants capturing material with their smartphones. Focusing on moments of stillness, intimacy, labour and humour, disparate material is wedded into a compelling and coherent whole by Quaintance’s subtle editing, original music and vivid sound design.

Pitched between documentary and abstraction ‘Anne, Richard and Paul’ is a portrait of the experimental music and performance trio Bow Gamelan Ensemble, comprising archival footage, 16mm film and SD video.