Birk has worked on photographic projects, films and visual research in China, South and Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

[2][dead link,better source needed] He then continued his studies at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), graduating with a M.F.A.

[5] Together with Austrian artist and scholar Karel Dudesek, Birk co-founded the Austro Sino Arts Program (ASAP).

The first public exhibition presented artworks by Dudesek, Birk and Marbot Fritsch as well as Indonesian artists Nurul 'Acil' Hayat, Arya Sukapura Putra, and Baskoro Latu.

In 2014, Birk began collecting box camera photographs called alaminüt (Turkish, from French: 'by the minute') in bazaars in Istanbul and Ankara, but also in Izmir, Mardin and Erzerum.

In his introduction, he wrote about the social importance of this kind of vernacular photography during the formative years of the modern Turkish republic and presented images of different sub-genres, including portraits of families, professional groups, soldiers and alaminüt photographers at work.

[18] According to Turkish social scientist Özge Calafato, who contributed with an introduction to the book, alaminüt photographers "filled in an important vacuum by penetrating remote towns and villages, reaching out to the lower classes, who might otherwise have no access to photo studios at the time.

[27] The MPA has received major funding from the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme[28] and the German cultural center – Goethe-Institute – in Myanmar.