Available Light

Chelsea Space presents Available Light, the debut solo gallery exhibition in London by British artist and writer Morgan Quaintance, running 10 October – 12 December 2025. Bringing together still photography, text, documentation and archival material, the exhibition explores and interrogates the notion of home to include instances of displacement, foreignness, fiction, incursion and projection, shaped by the artist’s recent travels to Japan. Available Light is the culmination of a year-long touring project of the same name, reimagined for Chelsea Space.

The exhibition features Quaintance’s original images that depict scenes of domesticity, temporary accommodation and the build environment in urban Japan, offering reflections on often-unsettling realities of contemporary city life. Alongside these, Quaintance weaves in fragments of cultural memory, drawing on mid-century plays, films and cinematic references that echo themes of intrusion, alienation and the fragile idea of home. These include the American con artist David Hampton, who inspired the film Six Degrees of Separation; Harold Pinter dramas, which are often marked by domestic intrusion; and the 1961 film The Catch, which examines themes of entrapment and prejudice and is based on the prize-winning novella Shiiku by Kenzaburō Ōe.

Active since 2018, Quaintance’s multi-award-winning moving image practice is widely known for its combination of affective sound design, formal sophistication and complex subject matter. In contrast to the moving image presentations that have been staged at different venues up until this point, Available Light at Chelsea Space serves as a space for dialogue, where a diverse range of images and static materials interact to explore the themes of home and belonging. Available Light will be accompanied by a programme of talks and events to be announced.

Free to view, no booking required

Opening hours: Thursday - Saturday, 11am-4pm

About Morgan Quaintance

Morgan Quaintance is a London-based artist and writer.

His moving image work has been shown and exhibited widely at festivals and institutions including: MOMA, New York; Konsthall C, Sweden; 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.

His practice remains open and responsive to contemporary experience and so largely eschews the rehearsal of set themes. However, interests in the human condition, the cultic milieu, counterculture, ethnography, the built environment, Afro-Caribbean, African American, East Asian and British histories are all mainstays.