‘Martin O’Brien and zack mennell reunite for their exhibition, Whistling As The Night Calls, hosted by Future Ritual at the VSSL Studio in Deptford. This marks a significant evolution in their impressive decade of collaboration, as it’s their first wholly photographic work. It revisits moments from O’Brien’s past live performances and captures them anew through still images with mennell behind the lens.
Martin O’Brien, a pivotal figure in disability art who lives with cystic fibrosis, continues his exploration of mortality and existence, identifying as a “zombie” who defies his life expectancy. The images, though a shift from live performance, resonate with his enduring themes of life, death, and the spectral space in between. In one corner of the gallery, he is seen cradled in a church, wearing only a leather head harness; nearby, another image shows him in a field, dressed in black, reaching and crying out through another harness which forceps his mouth open, toward an unseen force. Together, they capture a haunting and unsettling duality evoked through his vulnerability and resilience.
In this series, the chosen locations become essential characters, more than mere backdrops to O’Brien’s performances. Set against the haunting brutalist ruin of the former seminary at Cardross in Scotland and the desolate, shingled shores of Dungeness, O’Brien embodies a figure between life and death. The artists aptly likened the experience as “performing for ghosts.” This sensitivity to sit-specific work has roots in mennell’s earlier work, such as Tide Changers: (para)site, which explored the Deptford Foreshore. In that piece mennell highlighted the river’s encroachment on their body as a metaphor for parasitism, allowing the setting itself to embody the physical and psychological impact of the environment on the self.
For me, the standout image captures O’Brien lying on a pebble beach, his form blurred by streaks of red light that bleed across his neck and chest, emphasising his body’s vulnerability. This effect, combined with the stark stillness of the surrounding scene, invokes a spectral quality, as if something beyond the living and visible world permeates the frame and into the gallery. This effect is taken further within the skeletal frame of an abandoned building, where O’Brien sprawls his body in a series of nine shots in different locations within the photographs. With each shot, viewers are drawn to new vantage points within the expansive space, creating an unsettling sense that something remains hidden, just beyond reach. mennell’s choice to shoot on analogue film—consistent with their previous exhibitions—imbues O’Brien’s figure with a haunting vacancy with its stark lighting contrast, as if his body itself resists being fully grasped by our eyes.
In his past productions Martin O’Brien has reflected on ‘art as a place – maybe the only place – where you can regain agency over your body.’[1] Together, the artists create a series that lingers in the mind, inviting audiences to confront mortality, to share in this space between life and death, and to connect with what lies beyond the visible.
Review by Olivia Kiakides
Reference: [1] The Guardian- ‘‘I was born with death as my sidekick’: the ‘zombie’ with cystic fibrosis who turns pain into art’ (2023)
Featured Image credit: zack mennell
VSSL Studio, Deptford, SE8 4AL
Now running, until 1 December 2024
Open Thursdays by appointment & Fridays to Sundays, 12pm-6pm
Read our latest exhibition Review: Critical Edge Collective’s ‘From the Ground Up’: Investigating knowledge in the post truth era through collaborative art – at Lewisham Arthouse, October 2024 – Abundant Art
