Everyone is Interesting with Mammalian Diving Reflex

Darren O’Donnell is an urban cultural planner, novelist, essayist, playwright, filmmaker, performance director, and the artistic director and founder of Mammalian Diving Reflex. His books include Your Secrets Sleep with Me (2004); Social Acupuncture (2006), in which he argues for an aesthetic of civic engagement; and Haircuts by Children and Other Evidence for a New Social Contract (2018), in which he proposes the cultural sector as a pilot for a new social contract with children. His performance work includes Haircuts by Children, All the Sex I've Ever Had, Nightwalks with Teenagers, The Last Minutes Before Mars, Everything Has Disappeared, and Teentalitarianism.  

O’Donnell’s model for long-term collaboration with young people has been implemented in London, Bochum, Milan, and Berlin. He is interested in expanding and rethinking the role of cultural institutions in the world, particularly in terms of long-term engagement and collaborative friendships that spread into the wider community.

Institutional partners have included the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, the Humboldt Forum, the Tate Modern and Tate Britain, the West Kowloon Cultural District, the London International Festival of Theatre, the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region, the Schauspielhaus Bochum, and the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art.

Based in Germany, Canada, and Australia, Mammalian Diving Reflex is a research-art atelier conducting culturally explorative work since 1993. The artists of Mammalian are committed to social acupuncture: playful, provocative, site-specific, and social-specific participatory performances, events, moments, situations, stage-based work, gallery-based participatory installations, videos, art objects,  theoretical texts, and models for youth engagement that are being replicated globally. The team has successfully carried our energies into the fields of urban planning, writing, directing, art history, education, photography, videography, filmmaking, acting, playwriting, and qualitative and quantitative research. Mammalian Diving Reflex’s work dismantles barriers between individuals, fostering a dialogue between audience members, between the audience and the material, and between the performers and the audience. Our work is innovative; we collaborate with diverse groups of youth, seniors, and adults, exploring and stretching the boundaries of what is considered theatre and performance. We are regularly invited to present our work in some of the most important contemporary performing arts festivals and venues in the world as well at the primary school just down the block, past the house where the dog is always barking.