Jen Harvie interviews Martin O’Brien on his work and Q and A
On the Stage Left podcast, Jen Harvie interviews artists and companies about their approaches to making performance - how they make it, why they make it, and why they make it the ways they do. Launched in 2017, Stage Left’s interviewees have included Split Britches, Sh!t Theatre, Selina Thompson, Krishna Istha, Lucy McCormick, Breach Theatre, and Reverend Billy. The podcast has had a hiatus, and this double bill live event brings it back strong, with interviews with QMUL Drama colleagues playwright Mojisola Adebayo on her playwriting for Palestine (5:30-6:25pm) and live artist Martin O’Brien on his work (6:45-7:45pm). Interviews will be followed by opportunities for audiences to ask their own questions of the artists. Please join us to hear from these brilliant artists about practices of political resistance in their work. Produced by Debbie Kilbride.
Jen Harvie is Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Performance at QMUL. Her publications on performance-making include Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes and the artists’ edited collections The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver and Scottee: I Made It. She has done consultancy and dramaturgy with artists including Lucy McCormick, Cade & MacAskill, and Lisa Gornick. In 2017, she founded the podcast Stage Left on which she has interviewed artists and companies
Martin O’Brien is an artist and zombie. He works across performance, writing and video art. His work uses long durational actions, short speculative texts and critical rants, and performance processes to explore death and dying, what it means to be born with a life-shortening disease, and the philosophical implications of living longer than expected. He has shown work throughout the UK, Europe, USA, and Canada, and is well known for his solo performances and collaborations with the legendary LA artist and dominatrix Sheree Rose. His most recent works were at Tate Britain, the ICA (London), the Southbank Centre, and as Writer in Residence at Whitechapel Gallery. He is winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize for Visual and Performing Arts 2022. Martin has cystic fibrosis and all of his work and writing draws upon this experience. In 2018, the book Survival of the Sickest: The Art of Martin O’Brien was published by Live Art Development Agency. His work has been featured on BBC radio and Sky Arts television, and as a double page spread in The Guardian. He is currently Head of the Department of Drama at Queen Mary University of London.