Frankie Quinn

I have always been fascinated with the social world and architecture of the caravan park. Every spring, families residing in the urban centres across Ireland migrate from the city to the country. The caravans become they're “home away from home” for a short period of time. This immobile space becomes the site of retreat and leisure, an escape from everyday life. Crammed row by row with other caravans in parks throughout the island, this work depicts scenes that emerged from such a caravan park.

Questions around the poetics of the seemingly simple architecture of the caravan, the class divisions within the parks, and the ways in which these living spaces provide a means of embodied and cognitive escape from the anxiety of home life and asks: What does it mean for residents to find enjoyment here?

The work examines the caravan park as a microcosm of the processes of late capitalism and as a dilution of modern culture where the joys and banalities of life converge in a pre-fabricated and pre-packaged space.

I embedded myself within one community for two summers to understand the forms of social life that emerged while also documenting the stark forms of the caravans themselves. This work thus tells a story about the most intimate spaces of leisure.

This project is my contribution to my MFA in photography and my first major work in colour.

The oldest caravan park on the island.

Cathy Cahoon, May 22, 2016

“We have been on Bonny's 27 years now would I recommend it. Yes, where others don't care, Bonny's do. Its a little community. There's a deep family history to provide and deliver a Holiday Park with the family feel. One has freedom but yet there are rules, it's a place with staff committed to the personal touch, isn't that how we like it? Come stay and you won't regret it”.