biography

In the collaborative practice of London-based artists Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings, the appearances of LGBTQ culture are evaluated, in both their establishment and clandestine forms, as a tactile environment of lived signs that is performed and transformed by its inhabitants.

Under historical circumstances that have liquidated the realms of public and private in favor of an all encompassing society, the queer culture that Quinlan and Hastings undertake is of a foregrounded intimacy; the intimacy of darkened spaces, and of biological processes necessarily brought towards illumination. Utilizing drawing and digital video (and their intersection in digital animation), the works of Quinlan and Hastings serve as both a document of, and proposition for, the social spaces of queer life.

Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings (B. 1991, Newcastle/ London) live and work in South East London. They graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2014. Their work centers themes of queerness and resistance, and includes an ongoing project @Gaybar, wherein the artists rematerialise the historic gay bar as a container for queer practice. Selected solo/duo exhibitions include Fuck Me On The Middle Walk, Truth and Consequences, Geneva (2017); GENTRIFICATION, presented by Daata Editions and Zuecca Projects, 15th Venice Architecture Biennale (2016); How to survive a flood @Gaybar, DRAF Studio, London (2016) and Cruising Extinction, @Gaybar, Oslo 10, Basel (2015). Selected group exhibitions include (X) A Fantasy, DRAF, London (2017); Coming Out, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2017); Utopian Voices Here & Now, Somerset House, London (2016); No! I Am No Singular Instrument, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2016); Curators’ Series #9: Ways of Living by Arcadia Missa, DRAF, London (2016); CONDO Cinema (screening), Genesis Cinema, London (2016) and S, Arcadia Missa, London, (2015). Their video archive of the gay bars of major U.K. Cities – The U.K. Gaybar Directory – has been recently acquired by The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.