[5] He was an artist-in-residence at Yaddo in 2013,[6] the MacDowell Colony in 2015,[7] Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's studios on Governors Island in 2016,[8] and the Camargo Foundation in 2020.

Projects have included a collaboration with the courtroom sketch artist at the Guantanamo military commissions;[10] a digital photographic transcription of identification numbers from the Iraq War civilian casualties database;[11] a photo archive image from Kabul traced to Renaissance lapis lazuli mines in Afghanistan;[12] an extract of CIA legalese in skywriting above Manhattan;[13] and a plane circling the Statue of Liberty's torch towing a banner that read "The Shadow of a Doubt".

[14] Birkin has published photo-essays and articles in Frieze,[15] Cabinet,[16] Creative Time Reports,[17] Ibraaz,[18] Disegno,[19] The Harvard Advocate,[20] and the American Civil Liberties Union blog,[21] on subjects ranging from a legally protected species of iguana roaming freely at Guantanamo Bay detention camp[22] to Marilyn Monroe's 1945 photoshoot at an army drone factory in California.

[24] His show "Mouths at the Invisible Event" at The Mosaic Rooms in London in 2015[25] was described by Hyperallergic as "a methodical examination of the language, aesthetics, and ethos of modern warfare [that] ultimately makes the emotional reality and Kafkaesque lunacy of such a system hit home".

His film credits have included roles in The Return of the Musketeers (1989, as Louis XIV), Impromptu (1991), Les Misérables (1998), All the Queen's Men (2001), Charlotte Gray (2001), and Sylvia (2003).