Award-winning poet, writer, sound artist and performer Caroline Bergvall has an interdisciplinary practice, working across artforms, media and languages all over the world. Her works include books, performances, sound installations and print.

The recipient of many international commissions, Caroline is a noted exponent of writing and performance methods adapted to contemporary audiovisual and contextual situations, as well as multilingual identities and translocal exchange.

Projects alternate between books and printed matter, collaborative performances, site-specific installations and soundworks. She has a strong interest in interdisciplinarity work and her pieces are often developed through the exploration of material traces, literary documents, historical languages as well as hidden or forgotten knowledge. Her sparse textual, spatial and audio works often expose hidden or difficult historical and political events. Of which, the book, performance and installation Drift (2014-2018), and the multi-year performances of Ragadawn and its Laanguage Station research across mutliple linguistic geographies (2016-2020).

Recent notable awards include being awarded a Cholmondeley Award for her poetic production (UK, 2017); the first recipient of the art literary prize Prix Littéraire Bernard Heidsieck-Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2017); awarded a Bogliasco Fellowship, Italy (2019) and was a Kelly Writers House Fellow (Philadelphia, 2022). Currently a Global Professorial Fellow, Queen Mary University of London.

Upcoming events

Books: Alisoun Sings (2019), Drift (NY 2014) and Meddle English (NY 2011) continue to sustain interest and reviews both in the US and Europe. Meddle English has been translated into French as L’Anglais Mêlé (2018).

In preparation: Caroline Bergvall’s Medievalist Poetics: Migratory Texts and Transhistoric Methods, eds. C Bergvall & Joshua Davies (Arc Humanities Press, 2023)

Recent Projects and Commissions: Nattsong performance (Cement Fields, Rivers Instutute, New Orleans, Turner Contemporary, 2021), Conference of the Birds (After Sweeney), Dublin ILF 2019, Conference of the Birds (After Attar), Whitstable Biennale (2018), Pressing Clouds Passing Crowds, text & voice, for Kym Myhr CD, Hubro (2018), Pink Trombone, audiowork Documenta 14, Kassel/Athens (2017); Ragadawn (Galway City of Culture, 2020, Atlas Arts, Skye, Mucem Marseille 2018, La Batie, CH / Estuary Festival, UK 2016); Together, installed audiowork, Mamco Museum, Geneva (2014);..

Selected performances / installations: Atlas Arts (Isle of Skye), MUCEM (Marseille); Actoral (Marseille); Jewish Museum (Munich), Kube (Ålesund), Ritournelles (Bordeaux); Festival de laBatie (Geneva); Tate Modern (London), Serpentine Gallery (London), Arnolfini Gallery (Bristol); Whitstable Biennale (Whistable), Louisiana Museum (Copenhagen), Khoj Art Centre (New Delhi), Fondation Vuitton (Paris); Southbank Centre (London); Arnolfini Gallery (Bristol), MUkHa (Antwerp), MACBA (Barcelona); Samtidsmuseet (Oslo); Luma Foundation (Zurich); MAMCO Museum of Contemporary Art (Geneva); Fundacio Tapiès, (Barcelona); MCA (Denver), MOMA (NY), Whitney Biennial (NY); The Power Plant  (Toronto), St. Marks Poetry Center (NY).

Solo Shows: Drift, Callicoon Fine Arts, (NYC, 2015); Front, Vita Kuben, Norrlandsoperan (Umeå, Sweden, 2013); Middling English (John Hansard Gallery, 2010); My Chaucer (DIA Foundation/Belladonna,2005), Say: Parsley (Spacex, 2001).

Selected Group Shows: Making Migration Visible (ICA/MECA,2018), Time After Time (John Hansard Gallery, 2018), Poesie Now! (Fondation Vuitton, Paris, 2014); Word. Sound. Power (Tate Modern & Khoj Art Centre, New Delhi, 2014); Postscript (MCA Denver/ Powerplant, Toronto, 2013); Visual Poetics (South Bank Centre, London, 2012)

Work in Recent Anthologies : Time After Time catalogue, John Hansard Gallery (2018);  The New Concrete (Hayward Gallery, 2015), The Animated Reader (New Museum, NY 2015);

Residencies, Fellowships and Positions: As a scholar and professor, she has taught in the UK, Europe and the US both in art schools and universities. Currently Visiting Professor, Kings College London (2017-2020). Instrumental in setting up the interdisciplinary Performance Writing programme at Dartington College of Arts, Director (1995-2000) and has been co-chair in Writing at Bard College (NY, 2004-2007). Mellon Fellow in Collaborative Arts (w/ Jen Scappettone & Judd Morrissey), University of Chicago (2016). Writer-in-Residence, Whitechapel Gallery (2014). Judith E. Wilson Fellowship, Cambridge University (2013-14). AHRC Fellow in the Performing Arts (2007-2010). Visiting Faculty, Summer Writing Program, Naropa Institute (Boulder, CO). Kelly Writers House Fellow (Philadelphia, 2022).