Deathly Durations: Illness, Temporality and Queer Death

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.

This artist lecture thinks through images of death and dying in performance. O’Brien will ask what can be understood about life and its opposite by looking at works of art by people at the end of their life. The talk will engage particularly with works that resist conventional narratives of illness, by constructing difficult and political images through durational action-based performance. O’Brien will think through his own recent performance-installation at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London) ‘The Last breath Society (Coughing Coffin)’, which explored the politics of living longer than expected in order to understand an enactment of durational thinking through death and decay.

This event is free and open to public.

Details and to RSVP :

Go to: www.roski.usc.edu/events and click on 
Roski Talks: Martin O'Brien.