Caitlin Quinn
Caitlin Quinn is a designer and researcher currently living and working in Dublin, Ireland. She is predominantly interested in design for arts and culture. Her work is particularly concept-driven and combines typography, photography and illustration. Though often minimal, it maintains playful, self-aware elements. She studied the Michael O’Connor Poster Collection as an aspect of her MA by Research Scholarship at Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD), Ireland, from which she graduated in 2014.
During the course of her MA, Caitlin implemented a paper handling policy at Limerick City Gallery of Art (LCGA), Ireland. She has designed several publications, and given talks as part of Design Week 2013 and LCGA’s summer talks programme.
In January 2015, she curated an exhibition based on the Michael O’Connor Poster Collection at LCGA, entitled ‘Prints from a Life.’
www.caitlinquinndesign.com
The Michael O’Connor Poster Collection: the responsibility of cultural institutions for the management, maintenance and preservation of donated collections
The Michael O’Connor Poster Collection was donated to Limerick City Gallery of Art in 1989. It is a rich and personal collection made up of approximately 2800 international posters. In the context of the Michael O’Connor Poster Collection, this 2-year MA by research project looked at how cultural institutions seek to balance the seemingly contradictory tasks of making collections readily available to the public, and effectively preserving these collections for the future. The MA took the form of a 12,000-word thesis, and an 80-page designed publication visually expanding upon it, copies of which are now held at Limerick School of Art & Design, Limerick City Gallery of Art and London College of Communication.
The book is rare and ephemeral, much like the poster collection. It is perfect-bound and soft-back, with a gallery-white, matte cover. It is therefore easily marked by the reader and the passage of time. In this way it is connotative of the archives that were pored through in researching the project. The book is elegant, flawed and at times somewhat awkward. Through glitches, abstract photography and illustration within a formal framework, it combines classic and modern design elements. Within the book there are several layers of information, which may be read in different ways. In this manner the dense content of the thesis is interpreted visually, and rendered accessible.