The recipient of many international commissions, Caroline Bergvall writes, performs and works in interdisciplinary often collaborative ways.
Projects alternate between books, printed matter, drawings, collaborative performances, site-specific installations and sound. Her sparse textual, spatial and audio works are often developed through a combination of literary, historical documents and various material traces. Her poetics are dedicated to manifesting cross-cultural contexts, identities on the move, in transition, in formation, or suspension, multilingual, hybrid, displaced, or diasporic. Her methods emerge from experiential, embodied as well as a queer critical focus.
Recent awards include a Cholmondeley Award for her poetic production (UK, 2017); first recipient of the art literary prize Prix Littéraire Bernard Heidsieck-Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2017); Kelly Writers House Fellow (Philadelphia, 2022), a Bogliasco Fellowship, (Genoa, 2019).
Currently Global Professorial Fellow, Queen Mary University London.

Photo credit: Thierry Bal

Photo credit: Thierry Bal
Books: Alisoun Sings (2019), Drift (NY 2014) and Meddle English (NY 2011). Meddle English translated into French by Vincent Broqua/Abigail Lang & Anne Portugal as L’Anglais Mêlé (Presses du Reel, 2018).
Just published: Caroline Bergvall’s Medievalist Poetics: Migratory Texts and Transhistoric Methods, eds. C Bergvall & Joshua Davies (Arc Humanities Press, Dec 2023)
A few recent projects and commissions: Say Parsley installation, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 2023, Apricot Tree sculptural work, Tostrup Slot, Denmark, 2022, Nattsong performance, Cement Fields, Rivers Institute, 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);..
Larger lockdown works: live online: Night & Refuge, 1 + 2, live collaborative writing events between bilingual/bicultural poets. Commissioning hosts: Cement Field (UK, May 20); Oslo International Poetry Festival (Nov’20)
Sonoscura, collaborative film poem. Online, Planet P, Berlin International Poetry Festival (June’20).
Live Commissions: Conference of the Birds (After Sweeney), Dublin ILF 2019, Conference of the Birds (After Attar), Whitstable Biennale (2018), Ragadawn (Batie, Geneva, CH / Estuary Festival, UK 2016-2018)
Some Sound Outputs: Sonoscura (2021), Pressing Clouds Passing Crowds, text & voice, for Kym Myhr (CD, Norway 2018), Oh My Oh My, Documenta14, Kassel/Athens (2017); Together, Mamco Museum, Geneva (2014)
Selected performances/installation venues:
Maijazz (Stavanger, Norway), Henry Moore Institute, Atlas Arts (Isle of Skye), MUCEM (Marseille); Actoral (Marseille); Jewish Museum (Munich), Kube (Ålesund), Tate Modern (London), Serpentine Gallery (London), Ritournelles (Bordeaux); Festival de la Batie (Geneva); 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: Visiting Professor, Kings College London (2017-2022). 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).
Download full cv.
Download PDF