Caroline Bergvall is an artist, writer and performer. Works across artforms, media and languages. The recipient of many awards and commissions, her work frequently develops through exploring material traces, literary documents and linguistic detail, language and literary history, sites and histories, hidden or forgotten knowledges. Her sparse textual, spatial and audio works often expose hidden or difficult historical/political events.
A strong exponent of writing/reading methods adapted to contemporary audiovisual and contextual situations, fugitive and mobile contemporaneity, as well as multilingual identities. Projects alternate between books and printed matter, audio pieces, collaborative performances, site-specific installations. Based in London and Geneva.
Most recent large-scale project: DRIFT (2013-2015). This has taken multiple forms in a range of environments, countries and artforms. It explores narratives and mappings of travel, migrancy and disappearance, specifically old nordic maritime navigation, the politics and horrors of contemporary sea migrancy, Anglo Saxon sea poetry, being lost as sea in literal and allegorical ways, through contemporary, historical, archeaological means. Initially commissioned by Theatre du Grutli, Geneva 2012 as a collaborative performance involving voice, percussion, datawork. UK tour 2014 with Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach, Swiss visual artist and programmer Thomas K�ppel, Swiss dramaturg Michele Pralong. Solo show of graphic works and audio compositions at Callicoon Fine Art gallery (NY, jan-Feb 2015). Texts, drawings and maps published as Drift by Nightboat Books, NY, 2014. Research funded through a Judith E Wilson Fellowship, University of Cambridge (2013-2014).
New audio commission TOGETHER (keeping it/Losing it/Doing it), voicework in 3 parts, Swiss radio RTS2 & MAMCO Museum of Contemporary Art (Geneva, 2014).
Other project/ available publications: Meddle English: New and Selected Texts (Nightboat Books, 2011), Middling English (John Hansard Publications, 2010), DVD of installations, Ghost Pieces: five language-based installations (John Hansard Publications, 2011).
Various solo and group shows: Whitney Biennial (NY), Fondation Vuitton (Paris), Tate Modern (London), Khoj Art Centre (New Delhi), MCA (Denver), The Power Plant Gallery (Toronto), Norrlandsoperan (Sweden), Actoral Festival (w/Adam Parkinson on laptop, Marseille), Shorelines Festival (Southend), Fundacio Tapi�s (Barcelona), Hammer Museum (LA), KUMU (Tallinn), MOMA (NY), Samtidsmuseet (Oslo), Villa Bernasconi (Geneva).
