Professor Caroline Bergvall, PhD, Dartington College of Arts/University of Plymouth, 2000

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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Research

Research Interests:

• Multilingual and Crosscultural Textualities
• Site-specific Performance and Context-led Reserach
• Interdisciplinary Conversation
• Local and Translocal modes of dialogue and exchange
• Sound, Voices, Place, Technology

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)  (2^nd 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)

Public Engagement

Radio 3 The Verb (April 2023), Aftenposten Review of concert with collaborators, Maijazz, Stavanger, Norwway (12 May)

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.