Past Event
Access requirements
The Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our events as accessible as possible for every audience member. Please contact access@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
Information about access on site at the gallery is available here https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/visit/access/
This includes information about Lift access; Borrowing wheelchairs & seating; Assistance Animals; Parking; Toilets and baby care facilities; Blind & Partially Sighted Visitors; Subtitles and transcripts; British Sign Language (BSL) and hearing induction loops; Deaf Messaging Service (DMS).
About This Event
This event takes place in Gallery 2 at Whitechapel Gallery, located on the ground floor.
This event lasts approximately 1.5 hours. There are no rest breaks currently scheduled during this event.
You must book a ticket to attend the event.
If the ticket price affects your attendance, please email tickets@whitechapelgallery.org to be added to the guest list (no questions asked, but dependent on availability).
We are unable to provide British Sign Language interpretation for this event
We are unable to provide live closed captioning or CART for this event.
An audio recording of the event can be obtained by emailing publicprogrammes@whitechapelgallery.org following the event.
Transport
To the best of our knowledge, there are no planned disruptions to local transport on the date of the event.
Our nearest train station – Aldgate East Underground (1 min) is not wheelchair accessible. The closest wheelchair accessible stations are Whitechapel (15 min), Shoreditch High Street (15 min) or Liverpool Street (15 min).
Free parking for Blue Badge holders is available at the top of Osborn Street in the pay and display booths for an unlimited period. Spaces are available on a first come, first served basis.
Live Recording
Please note: we audio record all events for the Whitechapel Gallery Archive and possible future online publication via Soundcloud.
At a moment of reckoning for live art and performance in the capital, we invite artists, practitioners, and organisations to collectively reflect on the current live art landscape and map out where we might go from here.
To kick things off, Martin O’Brien, Harold Offeh, and Mary Osborn (Director of the Live Art Development Agency) will speak to generational shifts and the live art scene’s evolution over time, as well as the resilience of the art form and the importance of collective organising.
Following the panel discussion, we will open up the floor to the audience to share thoughts, comments, and reflections as we map out some of the different ways that live art manifests itself today and ask what we as artists, practitioners, curators, and organisers want and need from the sector, now and into the future.
This event is aimed at artists and practitioners with an active interest or practice working with live art and performance – all levels of experience and practice are welcome.
This event is organised in partnership with LADA and accompanies this year’s London Open Live.
Martin O’Brien is an artist who works across performance, writing and video art. His work uses long durational actions, short speculative texts and critical rants 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. Martin has cystic fibrosis, and all of his work and writing draws upon this experience. He has shown work throughout the UK; Europe; USA; and Canada, both solo performances and collaborations with the legendary LA artist and dominatrix Sheree Rose. Recent works include Until the Last Breath is Breathed, Tate Britain (2020), and The Last Breath Society (Coughing Coffin), ICA London (2021), An Ambulance to the Future, Southbank Centre (2024) as well as a trilogy of works as part of a residency at Whitechapel Gallery (2023). Martin was winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize for Visual and Performing Arts 2022 and is head of performance at Queen Mary University, London.
Harold Offeh is an artist working in a range of media including performance, video and social arts practice. He has exhibited widely including Tate Britain, London; South London Gallery; Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge; Studio Museum Harlem, New York; MAC VAL– Val-de-Marne Contemporary Art Museum, Paris; and Art Tower Mito, Mito. His forthcoming solo exhibition will open at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge in November 2025.
Offeh studied Critical Fine Art Practice at Brighton University, MA Fine Art Photography at the Royal College of Art, and in 2020, completed a practice-based PhD exploring the activation of Black Album covers through durational performance at Leeds Beckett University. He lives in Cambridge and is Head of Programme for MA Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art, London.
LADA’s mission is to develop Live Art research, practice and infrastructure in order to nurture and sustain the Live Art community. Our vision is for an expansive cultural sector that prioritises learning, practices resistance, embraces dissent, and invites possibility about what art can be and do.
Our London-based home holds our Study Room, a research collection of over 8,000 publications, resources and audio-visual documentation of Live Art history and practice, as well as online resources. From the Study Room, we host year-round events, talks, screenings and performances, supporting practitioners to centre research and collaboration in their practice. Through residencies, commissions, workshops and mentoring, we create practice development opportunities for artists and practitioners working within the multiplicities of Live Art.
LADA also runs a bookshop dedicated to the proliferation of Live Art and co-ordinates Live Art UK, a national network that supports and develops the Live Art infrastructure for the benefit of artists, presenters and audiences.
