Profile
I am a poet and an interdisciplinary artist with a special focus on multilingual and context-led projects as well as transhistoric approaches. I am the author of a trilogy of texts and performance projects Meddle English (2005), Drift (2011) and Alisoun Sings (2019). I have shown my performances and installations both in the UK and internationally and was awarded a Cholmondeley Award 2017 as well as being the first recipient of the art literary prize Bernard Heidsieck-Centre Pompidou Paris 2017. I am also an Art Practice Mentor and founder of the online Solitary to Solidary Arts Lab to support writers and artists.
My appointment at QMUL consists in creating a research project that focuses on interdisciplinary conversation, modes of listening, and voice processing. It will build on a series of workshops and conversations with various kinds of participants around material exchange, vocal poetics, translocal trajectories, migratory birdsong, and creative systems of engagement. The workshops will take place indoors and outdoors. The research concludes in 2025 with a public and tourable performance event: a networked, processed and polyvocal conversation.
Caroline Bergvall CV [PDF 223KB]
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Follow me on my website: www.carolinebergvall.com
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Publications
Selected Books
2023 Caroline Bergvall’s Medievalist Poetics: Migratory Texts and Transhistorical Methods, eds. C. Bergvall & J. Davies (Arc Humanities Press) – forthcoming -
2019 Alisoun Sings (Nightboat, NYC)
2014 Drift (Nightboat Books) (2nd printing 2016)
2011 Meddle English: New and Selected Texts (Nightboat Books: NY, Feb 2011) (2nd printing 2013)
2010 Middling English (JHG Publications: Southampton, 2010)
2005 Fig (Salt Books: Cambridge, 2005)
2001 Goan Atom: Doll (Kruspkaya Books: San Francisco, 2001)
1999 Jets-Poupee (Rempress: Cambridge, 1999)
1996 Eclat (Sound & Language: Lowestoft 1996)
Selected Articles And Keynotes
2019 “Afterward”, Queenzenglish, ed. Kyoo Lee (Roof Books, NY)
2017 “Monolingualism is Killing Birds”, in Oh My Oh My, Southbank Centre (London)
2012 “Conceptual Twist” foreword, I’ll Drown my Book: Conceptual Writings by Women, co-edited w/ Laynie Brown, Teresa Carmody & Vanessa Place (Les Figues, LA).
2011 ‘Indiscreet G/hosts’, commissioned text for Imogen Stidworthy catalogue, Matt’s Gallery, Dec 2011
2009 “Pressure Points: Gendered and Tactical Authorship”, HOW 2 (vol. 3: 3, Nov 2009).
“Cat in the Throat – on bilingual occupants” in Jacket #37 (Spring 2009); in Ord & Bild arts quaterly, Swedish transl. by A. Farrokzhad (Spring 2009)
“Antekningar om den perfomativa textens politik” (What Do We Mean by Performance Writing?) in Swedish by Glänta eds, Glänta (4:08)
2007 “The Audio Culture of Writing”, online version Kritiker 7 (Dec 07); trans. into Swedish, in Kritiker 7 (Stockholm, Dec 07).
“Georges Perec’s site-writings” in Noulipean Analects, eds. M. Viegener & C. Wertheim (Les Figues, LA, Spring)
2004 “Handwriting as a Form of Protest: Fiona Templeton's Cells of Release”, Jacket # 26 (October)
2003 “Body & Sign: Thoughts around the work of Aaron Williamson, Hannah Weiner, Henri Michaux”, Jacket#22
“A Form of Address: A Conversation with David Antin: David Antin & Charles Bernstein”, Jacket #22 (May03)
“In the place of writing” in Assembling Alternatives: Reading Postmodern Poetries Transnationally, ed. Romana Huk (Wesleyan University Press, 2003)
2002 “Marks of Speech: on siting writing” in Additional Apparitions, Special issue The Paper, #3/4, eds. D.Kennedy & K.Tuma (March 2002)
2001 “Writing at the cross-roads of languages” in Telling it Slant: Avant Garde Poetics of the 1990s, eds. Steven Marks & Mark Wallace (University of Alabama Press, 2001), in Translating Nations, ed. Prem Poddar (Aarhus University Press, 2000)
1999 “Truncated/ Troncated: Mina Loy's misspellings” in Open Letter (Toronto, June 99)
Performance
Selected Performances & Installations
2023 Nattsong, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol – forthcoming –
Pressing Clouds, Passing Crowds, text and concert with musicians, MaiJazz, Stavanger, Norway
2021 Nattsong, Turner Contemporary Gallery, Margate/ Rivers Institute New Orleans
2020-21 Night & Refuge, Online Collaborative Writing Event, Estuary Festival / Oslo Int. Poetry Festival
Sonoscura, Planet P, Berlin Int. Poetry / Café Oto label
Shine in! Shine out! Digital piece, Edwin Morgan Celebrations, Poetry Libarry, London
2016-2019 Ragadawn sunrise performance: Atlas Arts, Isle of Skye, Scotland/ Marseille/ Galway City of Culture/Estuary festival
Conference (after Sweeney), interdisicplinary convesration-perforamnce, Dublin International Literature Festival
2018-2019 Conference (After Attar) , interdisicplinary convesration: Whitstable Bienale/ ILFDublin
2017 Crop, John Hansard Gallery
2015-2017 Drift installation: Calliccon Fine Art (NY); Seaan Kelly (NY), Centre Art Contemporain (Geneva), Logan Art Centre (Chicago), Vite Kuben (Ålesund)
2017 Oh My Oh My (Pinktrombone, 21 January 2017), Documenta 14, Basel-Athens
2016 Together (voice work in 3 parts), MAMCO Museum (Geneva), Espace 2/RTS Swiss Radio
2014 Public Address, Norrlandsoperan, Umeå, Sweden
2011 Ghost Cargo, sky banner. Writing Encounters/ Leeds City Gallery / Refugee Week
2010 Middling English, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK
2001-2020 Say Parsley installation: Spacex (Exeter), Arnolfini Gallery (Bristol), Liverpool Biennial,), Jewish Museum (Munich), MUKHA (Antwerp)
Selected Group Shows, Performances & Festivals
2023 The Weight Of Words, Henry Moore Foundation, Leeds – forthcoming Summer ‘23
2022 Earthsigns, Maritim Museet, Denmark
2019 La Voix Libérée, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Shibboleth, Jewish Museum, Munich
Edge of the Sea, Kuben, Ålesund, Norway
2016 Retrogarde, Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago
2015 By the Book, Sean Kelly Gallery, NY
Reverse, Villa Bernasconi, Geneva, Switzerland
2014 Fondation Vuitton, Paris,
Whitney Biennial, NY
Southbank Centre, London
Samtidsmuseet, Oslo, Norway
2013 Actoral Festival, Marseille
2013-14 Word. Sound. Power, Tate Modern, London; Khoj Art Centre, New Delhi
Non-Text, Eastern Michigan University Gallery, USA; Tarble Arts Center, Eastern Illinois University
2013 Afterlives of Gardens/ Kõndides mööda salateid, KUMU, Art Museum of Estonia, Tallinn,
2012-2014 Postscript: Writing after Conceptual Art, group show, Denver/Toronto/Michigan
Visual Poetics, South Bank Centre, London, 12 Feb – 5 May.
