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 in order 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 in 2020, the ICA (London) in 2021, and as Writer in Residence at Whitechapel Gallery in 2023. 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 senior lecturer in Live Art, and head of department of Performance, at Queen Mary University of London.

During his residency at Warehouse9, Martin will be working on a new performance. The performance will premiere at Tate Britain in November 2025. The working title of the project is ‘Into the Fog…’. Martin will continue his exploration of death, dying, the undead, and ghostly returns through foggy death-scapes, where images are half seen or miss seen. Fog filled grave yards or woods are classic horror film settings. The fog has the potential to hide danger, but also to make the innocent feel dangerous. In the fog, nothing looks or feels the same. The air feels thick, almost suffocating, if you fall asleep in the fog, would you drown?