How I create… with Martin O'Brien

Hailing from Burnley, Martin O’Brien is one of the UK’s leading performance artists having performed at major arts venues around the world.

He has cystic fibrosis and his work and writing draws upon this experience, often exploring death and dying, what it means to be born with a life-shortening disease, and the philosophical implications of living longer than expected.

One such work is An Ambulance to the Future, which he brings to the Southbank Centre in September 2024 as part of Unlimited. Having been told, due to his illness, that he wouldn’t live beyond the age of five, and then 30, O’Brien, now 36, identifies as a zombie.

When and where do you find yourself at your most creative?

Weirdly the places where a lot of the beginnings of ideas come to me are places like in the shower or walking the dog, where I am engaged in other activity. Whereas the studio is a place to develop things and try stuff out, but it’s not the place where the initial creative spark arrives. That comes more out of the blue when I am engaged in something else.

How do you know when an idea is worth developing into something more?

Usually because it persists. So, unusually I will have these ideas that are constantly in my head and I can’t get them out until I manifest them in the work. It’s about longevity, and sometimes the idea won’t end up in one piece, but it will stay with me and find its way into another performance. It’s about the image that constantly stays and haunts you. 

Which tools are key to your creative process?

A lot of the work that I make is really images with the body. The tools that I often use to get to it are actually through writing. So a lot of the initial stages of my practice are spent writing stories and it is through those stories that I figure out the vocabulary, colours, textures, feelings of the work. That then translates into images and action.

Who are you creating your work for, and how free are you to create the work you want to create?

I create it for the people who are there. An imagined audience, but not any specific demographic or person. The people that want it come for it. And myself in a way as well. It’s for my taste.

How do you stay disciplined, and dedicated to your work?

The fire. It burns in me. The desire to keep making. So discipline to me is easy because it is such a necessity. The work I make feels so important that finding the discipline to continue feels easy and natural. Love is part of it as well, of course. My answer to this question 20 years ago would have been different though, the slog of trying to get the gigs now is a different kind of discipline.

What do you do when you hit a wall; when you feel unmotivated or uninspired? How do you overcome this?

Usually, to be honest, I just sit it out and let it work its way through. I have these moments very often when I am not feeling very up for it and I just do other things and try not to think about it.

Unless I am in the middle of the process. Then it’s horrible because you’re trying to make a piece of work and you hit a wall. That can be hard because you have got to force it in a way then. The most useful way is to not force it and just do other things. Go for a lot of showers and dog walks.

Who do you look to for feedback?

Different people in different ways. I’ve worked with Zack Mennell for many years. They usually join me in the studio later in the process when I start to teach them what I am going to do. Zack knows my practice so well that they usually have some really good input.

My producer Joseph Morgan Schofield (Future Ritual) as well – usually on the structural and organisational side of things. In terms of the early discussions, it is usually pretty solitary but I talk to my partner David about a lot of the early ideas. It is mostly the people within the process and the people closest to me.

How different is your creative process now to when you first began as an artist?

Probably not that different but more refined. A lot of the principles that I started with are still part of it, so it feels quite similar. Writing has become a bigger, more central part of my process in the last 10 years than it used to be. My practice has become more formalised in a way because I’ve got the studio and structures in place. But in terms of the creative process it is pretty similar.

What does success feel like?

I don’t know, I’ve never really stopped to think about it. I feel successful because people say that I am but I don’t have a sense of what the feeling is.

Is there a piece of advice you’ve received that you often find yourself returning to?

Don’t be over available. If you do too many gigs in the same city too often people will stop coming.

What’s the most recent thing you learned about yourself through your work?

One thing that I know about myself through the work is that I can continue going. I have this weird insatiable desire to keep going physically. Not just in terms of the making, but also in those long durational performances – when I am knackered I can just keep going. In a tired and strange way I can keep going and going and going.

How do you know when you’re done?

A lot of the durational performances with improvisation moments are not done until the work’s finished. I build the score but sometimes I go into the performances thinking is it enough? But you just have to trust the process, and trust that the score that I have put together is enough.

Sometimes I go into the performance thinking I am not sure if it is done but it’s only in the work that you figure out ‘oh yeah it is’.