Martin Butler is an award winning artist & director.
CREATIVE · IMMERSIVE · PARTICIPATORY · CROSS-SECTOR
Over the past 25 years, Butler’s practice has evolved from performance-making into a broader form of experience building, working across performance, design, music, food, public space and participation.
His work brings together disciplines, people and contexts to create experiences that are visually distinctive, sensorial and socially engaged.
Moving between cultural institutions, public space and commercial contexts, he develops projects ranging from intimate encounters and immersive dinners to operas, exhibitions and large-scale participatory events.
At the centre of his practice is an interest in how experiences are constructed: how space, dramaturgy, atmosphere, participation and sensory detail can transform the relationship between a work and its audience.
In the summer of 2026 he developed OPERN-WAGEN, a mobile opera initiative that brought productions to rural areas in Southern Germany, together with Société Lunaire, Alte Music am Bodensee e.V and Kultur Zentrale Süd.
In 2025 he was the creative director of UFFRUR! on the Road…, a large-scale touring immersive production created in collaboration with the Landesmuseum Stuttgart. Developed to mark the 500-year anniversary of the German Peasant War, the project toured extensively and welcomed over 20,000 visitors.
His recent operatic and interdisciplinary works include Speculum Maius: Liber I (2022), premiered at Oper Bonn / Kunstmuseum Bonn, and Necromancy for Beginners (2022), created with the TACETi Ensemble and presented at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. Earlier operatic projects include Die Schwäbische Schöpfung (2019), staged with Ensemble Société Lunaire for the Festival Alte Musik am Bodensee; GIANNI (2016), a new opera based on the life of Gianni Versace developed with Brandt Brauer Frick for the Deutsche Oper Berlin; and Perseus & Andromeda, directed and scenographed for the Italian ensemble L’Aura Rilucente, combining opera, baroque music, shadow play, and performance for young audiences.
He is a long-standing collaborator with Ensemble Société Lunaire, with whom he premiered Die Wilde Jagd and Dodo.
He continues to develop immersive, multi-sensorial works exploring performance, ritual, and design, including The Sin Eaters, Dinner of the Damned, Ce n’est pas un repas and The Chromatic Dinner. The Chromatic Dinner has been presented internationally at Mediamatic (Amsterdam), Het Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam), LA Design Festival, Seattle Design Festival, Vienna Design Festival, Watermans Arts Centre (London), Antwerp, Vicenza, Dubai, FEFF in Udine, and Beijing Design Week, where it received the award for Food and Innovation. In 2027, he launches Monsieur Momo, a new work inspired by La Cuisine de Monsieur Momo, célibataire, that explores solo dining as an experience of reflection and pleasure.
His work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Vienna design festival, Beijing Design Week, European Media Arts Festival (Osnabrück), WIELS (Brussels), Het Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam), Amsterdam Museum, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Marres (Maastricht), Museum of Modern Art Arnhem, Øksnehallen (Copenhagen), Istanbul Design Biennale, and Seattle Design Week, amongst many others.
Alongside his artistic practice, he has worked since 2003 as a creative concept developer and installation designer, collaborating with a wide range of cultural institutions, brands, and designers including Harman/Kardon, Diesel, Diesel Black Gold, LEE, Moschino, Netflix, Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Awards, Balich Wonder Studio, Santoni, Wrangler, Olympus, FILA, FOX, Johan Cruijff, and the Gianni Versace Retrospective, amongst many others.
As a dramaturgist, a personal highlight is the internationally award-winning opera/dance film Symmetry, directed by Ruben van Leer in collaboration with CERN, CTM Pictures, and NTR Podium.
From 2004 to 2014, he worked as artistic consultant for Mediamatic (Amsterdam), where he developed exhibitions and events including the Amsterdam Travel Biennale and the IK, IK, IK series, focused on self-representation. Between 2010 and 2012, he collaborated as researcher and co-writer on a project led by Prof. Caroline Nevejan (Delft University of Technology and the European Institute of Technology), examining performance, presence, and trust in the internet age. This research resulted in the publication of the book Witnessing You (2012).
He was a founding member and later artistic director of the Liminal Institute from 1997 to 2012. Since 1996, he has created performance work internationally across theatres, festivals, museums, and public spaces. He is widely known for his collaborative approach to theatre-making, bringing together artists from diverse disciplines to develop new forms of performance.
He was trained in Drama at Manchester University, and later in Choreography and Performance at SNDO, Amsterdam.
AREAS OF PRACTICE
Creative direction · Performance · Immersive experience · Participation · Dramaturgy · Public space · Multi-sensory design · Artistic research · Cultural strategy
Full project list available on request; over 100 international projects in theatre, dance, and immersive performance
