Ross Birrell employs a range of media including film, sculpture, installation, music, text, events and publications to produce works which interweave contexts of poetry, philosophy, politics, and place. He works both solo and collaboratively in gallery-based installations, site-specific projects, concerts and publications.

Birrell’s ongoing Envoy project of site-specific actions across the globe, responds to traditions of radical politics and utopian literature and is published in An Envoy Reader (LemonMelon, London, 2014). Other works explore classical musical forms in personal, poetic and political contexts which often form the basis of recitals, films and audio installations, including: Duet (2013) a work for two violas performed by Palestinian and Israeli musicians; Sonata (2013) a composition for piano trio, performed in the Non-Catholic Cemetery, Rome; A Beautiful Living Thing (2015) performed in the Mackintosh building in the aftermath of the fire; and Criollo (2017), a work developed for documenta 14.