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Anticipating The Butcher

Oscar McQuillan-Byrne

Profile picture of Oscar McQuillan-Byrne

Oscar McQuillan-Byrne is an artist and documentary photographer based between London and Manchester. Having studied Painting at Camberwell Collage of Art from 2018 to 2021, their practice has moved from painting to sculpture, finally setting in photography. After graduating from Photofusion’s Lambeth Adult Learning ‘Step Up’ programme in advanced photography McQuillan-Byrne enrolled on the Masters in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication.   His recent work looks to articulate the anxieties of the individual in the face of catastrophe and political violence. The Housemates (2021) is a consideration of newfound personal isolation and grief that many experienced during the lockdown, as can also be seen in I Love You (2021). Next Slide Please (2023) continues these themes, using a projected array of ‘counter slides’, made of slide film, to interrogate the daily COVID briefings of the Johnson era.  In 2024, McQuillan-Byrne showed work in collaboration with the Arab Image Foundation - The Land of Milk and Honey (2024) and UNRWA Cairn (2024)) as part of Open House (2024) at Copeland Gallery in south London.  Via interventions within the archive and in collaboration with other artists, he produced two works that looked to interrogate and activate the archive as a methodology for rethinking problematic historical narratives and preconceptions.  His most recent work Anticipating the Butcher (2024) follows the final journey made by Walter Benjamin when fleeing Nazi persecution and his subsequent death, in 1940. Spurred by Macron’s panic elections and the surge of the far right across Europe, this work locates a Europe in disarray in the face of a renewed far-right sentiment.  He has also exhibited at Southwark Park Galleries with Don’t Panic (2021)), Photofusion, as part of Salon 22 (2022), Through the Lens (2023), The Nature of Change (2024) as well as at the Bauhaus Museum Dessau as part of Bauhaus100 Festival (2018), in which he staged collaboratively devised performances for the Bauhaus Centenary.

Oscar McQuillan-Byrne is an artist and documentary photographer based between London and Ma...

Anticipating The Butcher looks to retrace the final journey made by the philosopher Walter Benjamin when fleeing Nazism. Denied entry to Spain and facing extradition, Benjamin chose to end his own life in the border town of Port-Bou.

Initially spurred by the panic elections in France and the surge of the far right across Europe, the work seeks to activate Benjamin’s theory of the ‘constellation’ as a way of seeing and knowing.  Drawing together documentary imagery, self-portraiture and collected ephemera the work locates a Europe in disarray in the face of a return to its troubled past.

Final work

  • A green telescope, bathed in golden sunlight, overlooking the ocean on the side of a coastal road.
  • A cast iron money box in the shape of a Bear, the bear is facing away from the camera, revealing the slit in the back of its head.
  • A black and white photgraph, to the left of the frame in a tall, dark tree, to the right is a road sign with a french election poster attached.
  • The ceiling of Portbou Train Station's old custom hall, it is blue with gold starts, like the EU flag.
  • A postcard with Six puppies sat on studiio backdrop made of straw, there is a thought bubble containing an image of a beach, it says Costa Brava on it
  • A rusted iron gate sits across a dirt path, the sun is setting, the surounding folliage and trees are tinted gold.
  • A sign at the Spaninsh/French border, the word France has been crossed out and replaced with Catalunya. The picture is at dusk, the sign is glowing.
  • A black and white picture of a pole covered in old christmas lights, a christmas light in the shape of a bell is hung on the cliff face behind.
  • A picture of a black plastic chair looking out to sea on the beachfront of Portbou, taken at night with flash, the sea is as black as the chair.
  • Walter Benjamins Grave, it is a jagged rock with his name on an inlayed granite slab, the rock is covered in rose pettals.
  • An image of the Walter Benjamin Trail in black and white, it shows a winding dirt road surounded by foliage, a wire fence sits to the left.
  • A piece of the Walter Benjamin Memorial that depicts Benjamin's final letter before he died.

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Anticipating The Butcher

Anticipating The Butcher looks to retrace the final journey made by the philosopher Walter Benjamin when fleeing Nazism. Denied entry to Spain and facing extradition, Benjamin chose to end his own life in the border town of Port-Bou.</s...

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