Darren O'Donnell

Darren O’Donnell is an urban cultural planner, novelist, essayist, playwright, filmmaker, performance director and the Artistic and Founding Director of Mammalian Diving Reflex. He holds a BFA in theatre and a M.Sc. in urban planning from the University of Toronto and studied traditional Chinese Medicine at the Shiatsu School of Canada. His books include: Your Secrets Sleep with Me (2004), a novel about difference, love and the miraculous, Social Acupuncture (2006), which argues for aesthetics of civic engagement, and Haircuts by Children and Other Evidence for a New Social Contract (2018), which proposes the cultural sector as a site to pilot a new social contract with children. As an urban cultural planning his focus is on participation and, in particular, the radical engagement of children and young people at the core of cultural institutions. Past and current planning collaborators include the Humboldt Forum, the Tate Modern, the West Kowloon Cultural District, the London International Festival of Theatre, the Metropolitan Region of Rhine-Neckar, the Schauspielhaus Bochum and the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art.