Oscar McQuillan-Byrne

b. 2000, Manchester, UK

Lives and works in London, UK

Oscar McQuillan-Byrne is an Artist and Documentary Photographer from Manchester. In 2024, they completed their Masters in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication.

Spurred by the explosion of national populism worldwide, their work documents the troubling return of a hyper-polarised politics reminiscent of the 1930s. By combining cultural and socio-political histories with photography, their work aims to identify where this politics is bleeding into the present and where we are still being haunted by the past.

Their photobook "Anticipating the Butcher" (2024) retraces the final journey made by the philosopher Walter Benjamin as he fled Nazi persecution in 1940. Documenting the recycling of historical refugee routes and the aftermath of the French Elections, this work is currently held in the Walter Benjamin Archive at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and was featured in Format International Photography Festival (Young Format 25, Quad, Derby, 2025).

Their new and ongoing work, "The Building House" (2026), documents the Bauhaus' struggle with German polarisation and the rise of the extreme far-right in east Germany. It was included in the Centennial Programme for Bauhaus Dessau, "To the Core" (2026), in collaboration with researchers from the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. They have also exhibited at Copland Gallery (London, 2024), Photofusion (London, 2022, 2024 and 2025), Southwark Park Galleries (2020) and The Bauhaus Museum (Dessau, Germany, 2019).

Exhibited

2026 SALON/25 - Photofusion, London

2025 An Die Substanz (To The Core) - Bauhaus Dessau 100- Triadic Dance Club, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, Dessau, Germany

2025 Format 25 - Young Format, Format International Photography Festival, Derby Quad

2024 Please Make Photographs, Postgraduate

Degree Show, London College of Communication, London

2024 The Nature Of Change, Photofusion, London

2024 Accidental Encounters, Copeland Gallery, London

2023 Through The Lens, Photofusion, London

2022 Salon 22, Photofusion, London

2021 Permanent Temporary, The Bottle Factory, London

2021 Hopscotch, Safe-house 1, London

2021 Camberwell College of Arts Open Studios (Degree Show), Camberwell College of Arts, London

2020 Don't Panic, Southwark Park Galleries, London

2019 Bauhaus100 Festival, Bauhaus Museum Dessau, Dessau

Other

2020 'Show-Off', Cooke Latham Gallery, London

2019 OurHaus Festival, Camberwell College Of Arts, London

Education

2023/24 London College of Communication,

MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography

2018/21 Camberwell College Of Arts, BA (Hons) Painting