Meet Short Supply’s Emerging Artist, Jennifer Quinn Huck
First Street is delighted to announce a new partnership with Short Supply, the North West organisation dedicated to championing emerging artistic talent. The collaboration will see artist Jennifer Quinn Huck become the first recipient of the First Street Public Art Award, an opportunity created through Short Supply’s MADE IT Award programme.
The award celebrates promising early-career artists and provides a platform to showcase their work in a highly visible public setting. Jennifer was selected from this year’s cohort of emerging creatives, with the partnership reflecting a shared commitment from First Street and Short Supply to support the next generation of artists while bringing contemporary culture into Manchester’s public spaces.
A 2026 First Class Honours graduate in Fine Art and Art History from Manchester School of Art, Jennifer Quinn Huck is a collage artist whose practice explores communication, connection and community in an increasingly digital world. Combining collage, appropriation and digital fabrication techniques, her work examines how people experience and interact with modern technology, often drawing together archival materials, online imagery and references to regional identity.
For the First Street Public Art Award, Jennifer will present WE, US, TOGETHER, a series of seven large-scale artworks adapted from her original postcard-sized screenprints. Featuring text taken from an imagined AI manifesto, the works explore themes of belonging and human connection through bold colours and typography inspired by advertising, branding and digital interfaces.
Originally conceived as intimate, hand-held prints, the artworks have been reimagined on a much larger scale, creating an eye-catching installation that encourages visitors to pause, reflect and engage with the messages displayed. Installed on structures that also function as public seating, the works invite people to gather together, turning everyday public space into a place for conversation and shared experience.
Mollie Balshaw, Co-founder and Creative Director of Short Supply, said:
“What really excited us about Jennifer’s work was how naturally it belonged in public space. These tiny screenprinted postcards use the language of advertising and corporate messaging, but rather than trying to sell us something, they ask us to think about connection, community and our relationships with one another.
There’s something really wonderful about taking a message that originally fits in someone’s hand and making it almost two and a half metres wide. Because the boards are part of public seating, people can actually gather around them. The work becomes part of the community it’s talking about.”
Jennifer Quinn Huck’s installation will be unveiled at First Street on the Thursday 29th October, marking the beginning of an exciting new partnership with Short Supply and bringing a vibrant new public artwork to the neighbourhood.
