The Last Breath Society: A Seminar. Online on Thursday, September 16, 2021 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM BST

Please join Martin O’Brien, Kelechi Anucha, Lisa Baraitser, Dominic Johnson, Zack Mennell, Laura Salisbury, Joseph Morgan Schofield, Shabnam Shabazi, Nisha Ramayya, and Sheree Rose for an evening of discussion of Martin O’Brien’s recent performance piece, The Last Breath Society (Coughing Coffin) performed at the ICA, London, and his theoretical work on ‘zombie time’.

The evening will include contributions from members of the Waiting Times research team, and from artists, poets, academics and collaborators whose work was commissioned for The Last Breath Society, to explore questions of endurance, waiting, time and care.

‘The coffin is sealed shut; the faint sound of coughing can be heard from inside, ringing out through the night. In another place, a group are meeting. The Last Breath Society gather to breathe together, to mourn their own life and rehearse for the inevitable. ‘– Martin O’Brien

Martin O’Brien was born with a life shortening disease and recently surpassed his life expectancy – as such he is living in ‘zombie time’. The Last Breath Society (Coughing Coffin) continued Martin’s exploration of mortality through physical endurance, and long durations, considering the act of ‘waiting’ as a mode of survival. The work was performed for four hours a day, over eight days at the ICA, London. The performance developed over the days and explored how we wait for death. Each day, the performance used the remnants of the previous in a growing and changing installation.

As a living installation and exhibition, The Last Breath Society (Coughing Coffin) featured daily durational performances by Martin O’Brien and a series of 10 commissioned video works by Franko B, Ansuman Biswas, Rocio Boliver, Noëmi Lakmaier, Lechedevirgen Trimegisto, Joseph Morgan Schofield, Kira O’Reilly, Sheree Rose, Shabnam Shabazi, and Nicholas Tee.

Martin O’Brien is an artist and zombie. He works across performance, writing and video art. His work uses physical endurance, long durations, and pain based practices in order to examine what it means to be born with a life shortening disease, and to live longer than expected. He has shown work throughout the UK, Europe, USA, and Canada. This has included at Tate Britain, Spill Festival of Performance (both London), Kapelica Gallery (Ljubljana), Performatorium Festival of Queer Performance (Regina), Venice Week of Performance Art (Venice), In Between Time Festival of Contemporary Performance (Bristol), Grace Exhibition Space, Abrons Art Centre (both New York) and as artist in residence at ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives (Los Angeles). 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. He is currently senior lecturer in Performance at Queen Mary University of London. He recently surpassed his life expectancy and is enjoying life as a zombie.

Conceived and performed by Martin O’Brien, with sound by Suhail Merchant. Produced by Joseph Morgan Schofield, and production managed by Thomas Wilson. Martin is assisted in the performance by Zack McGuinness.

The Last Breath Society (Coughing Coffin) has been commissioned as part of Waiting Times, a Wellcome Trust funded research project by academics from Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Exeter. Waiting Times offers a fundamental re-conceptualisation of the relation between time and care in contemporary thinking about health, illness, and wellbeing.

The Last Breath Society (Coughing Coffin) has been supported with public funds from Arts Council England.

Images taken during the performance by Manuel Vason.

Please register via the Eventbrite page.