Martin Firrell

Martin Firrell (born April 4, 1963, Paris, France) has been described variously as a cultural activist, a campaigner, a public artist, or benevolent provocateur, stimulating debate in public space to promote positive social change.

Firrell has raised questions about the politics of aging, individual liberty, the right to personal idiosyncrasy, cultural diversity, gender equality, faith, climate change, masculinity, what constitutes a meaningful and purposeful life, hero worship, fair and truthful government, and the quality of human lived experience.

He has used cinema screens, newsprint, the internet, portraiture and video interviews of culturally significant figures like Howard Jacobson, April Ashley, Johnson Beharry VC, and A C Grayling, and large-scale digital projection onto the Guards Chapel, spiritual home of the Household Division of the British Army, the National Gallery in London, the Houses of Parliament, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Tate Britain, and St Paul's Cathedral.

Firrell has worked with complex and influential organisations including the Church of England (St Paul's Cathedral 2008) and The British Army (Household Division 2009). Canon Martin Warner, commissioner of Firrell's work for St Paul's stated in the cathedral's 2008 Annual Report that Firrell possesses "a genius for creating partnerships". Arguably, it's this ability that has enabled organisations to engage confidently with audacious, self-questioning project content including "I don't think this is what God intended" (West Front, St Paul's Cathedral) and "War is always a failure" (North elevation, Guards Chapel).

Firrell allowed cameras to record his creative process for the first time in 2008. The Question Mark Inside, a television documentary produced by Simon Channing Williams and Colin Burrows was broadcast by Sky Arts 1 on October 29, 2009, and provided new insights into Firrell's opinions, aims, daily life and practice.

Firrell's body of work includes investigations into portraiture (Text Portrait of Howard Jacobson, Booker Prize winner, 2010) and explorations of the power of mass popular culture to propagate socially useful ideas, in particular, the science fiction genre.

Writing in The Independent, Howard Jacobson stated, “I like words on public buildings and Firrell is a master at gauging their power.”

Caitlin Moran for The Times described Firrell's work as being built on “huge, open-chord statements that make your ears ring”.

Firrell was born in Paris, unexpectedly, on the Champs-Élysées outside what is now Sephora. He lives and works in Soho, London and a large proportion of his work is created at Soho pâtisserie, Maison Bertaux, which acts as his “studio, canteen and campaign HQ”.

Firrell is also London Cultural Ambassador for the International Herald Tribune and he curated the newspaper’s first London Arts Season in 2005, titled ‘Breathless…’ after Jean-Luc Godard’s nouvelle vague film of the same title.

Firrell trained originally as an advertising copywriter, and in his current work he can be seen to redeploy those commercial skills to more socially valuable ends.