Ross Birrell

Ross Birrell is a Senior Researcher at The Glasgow School of Art's School of Fine Art, with a practice spanning site-specific art, collaborative improvisation, and critical theory. His work engages with Utopian literature, animal studies, and the intersection of performance and philosophy. Birrell has exhibited widely, including documenta 14 and the Gwangju Biennale, often employing moving-image documentation and text-based outputs.

Research interests include site-specific art as a mode of interrogating spatial politics, improvisational practices in community building, and book destruction as a conceptual gesture. He explores animal presences in art and the haptic qualities of interspecies encounters, alongside post-Holocaust memory and democratic spatial practice through collaborative projects like the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.

• Key publications examine virtual improvisation during the pandemic
• Discursive interventions in art and literature contexts
• Musical and textual responses to crises like the Mackintosh Fire

Projects such as Envoy and The Transit of Hermes involve transnational collaborations with artists including David Harding and Douglas Gordon, funded by institutions like CCA, Creative Scotland, and documenta 14. Birrell's practice unites artistic experimentation with critical theory, emphasizing the role of uncertainty in creative processes.