Biography
Born 1978 London, England
Muzi Quawson is a visual artist primarily working with photography and 16 mm film. She earned a BA (hons) First Class in Photography from the UCA, Kent and completed an MFA in Photography at the Royal College of Art in London
Artist Statement
Rooted in the tradition of documentary photography, Quawson’s practice explores the lives of individuals on the margins of mainstream society. Often spending months on location and living with her chosen subjects, she gradually unpacks the various cultural tropes that underpin their sense of self.
The individuals to whom Quawson is drawn assert their identities through a blend of references informed by cinema, music, and the history of popular culture. By creating visual narratives that blend fact and fiction, Quawson draws inspiration from American New Wave cinema and its portrayals of outsiders and antiheroes while utilising a diverse tonal range that alternates between the informality of the snapshot and the iconic quality of the film still.
By projecting this work and transforming it into a cinematic idiom, the constructed identities adopted by these individuals are highlighted against the everyday realities of their lives. Ultimately, this work serves as a commentary on human identity.
Quawson’s works have been exhibited at Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Tate Britain, Bloomberg Space, The Photographers’ Gallery, Gana Art, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and IDFA: Paradocs at Amsterdam Art Weekend.
She received the Creative Innovation Award for a Short Film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Her work is included in several permanent collections, including the Centre Pompidou, Gana Art, the Mind’s Eye Collection, the Dutch National Bank, UBS, and various private collections across the UK and the USA.
Collections
Gana Art Center, Seoul, KR, Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR, The Mind's Eye Collection, Amsterdam, NL, The Dutch Federal Bank, Amsterdam, NL, Collection de Bruin-Heijn, NL, UBS, London, UK, Private Collections held in The UK, The Netherlands and The USA.