Caroline Bergvall is one of the artists taking part in the LEAN UPSTREAM season, as part of the Toynbee Studios event O Vienna, & other ideas.
Caroline Bergvall was born in 1962 of French-Norwegian nationalities and has been based in England since 1989. She is widely published and her text pieces and collaborations have been produced internationally. Her work plays around with perception through language games, sexual ecstasies, multilingual speech, sited texts and ephemeral gestures.
Her projects and research alternate between published poetic pieces and performance-oriented, often sound-driven writing projects. She collaborates frequently with other artists and her books are noted for their combination of performative, visual and literary textualities.
Bergvall was Director of the innovative and cross-arts writing program Performance Writing at Dartington College of Arts (1995–2000); Honorary Fellow, Birkbeck College, London (2000–2003); Associate Writer MA Writing, Cardiff University (2002-2005); co-Chair MFA Writing, Bard College, New York (2004-2007). She is currently an Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Southampton (2007-2010), UK.
BERGVALL : outskirts
from 'Three Norwegian Words'
How would I be taken up now
that kissing girls had aroused the crude growth
of unknown volumes
that pleasure had sprung the outer casings
that subtle spheres soundwaves electric currents
had been released -
What complex sets of allegiance would adjust
or intercept the inseams of pleasure
the process of knowledge -
The acceptable gaps between units -
The way I'm expected to walk down the street -
Access to my own roots remained long unrealised -
Love's mind to serve also derided -
How does one walk with her a langour called Inger -
Your name! What is your name! insisted the faces bent over passed out in the club -
Remembering not
had the advantage of not knowing -
A negative decision proves temporarily salutory -
Wider participation will require the acceptance
of some degree of being
some degree of awkwardness -
Rooted -
Not alone
Rooted -
Not alone
Tibetan monks allocate a lineage of spiritual merit
to (still mostly male) apprentices
it provides them with specific expectations
of training and behaviour
rhythm and devotion -
Pre-empted by their delivered root name
their living presence in the collectivity
commits to the future through this unique past -
This unique path -
Exposes any other origin to the raw hide of semblance -
I wondered if this could be applied to a lineage of love and lovers -
And towards what liberatory purpose -
What if someone had told me
I would be Federico Garcia Lorca
My name is Berg - a sharp wave of heat
had invaded my tongue as though the muscle
had suddenly been pulled or
had simply become detached
just as I had tried to speak my tongue
had split into two equal halves -
Vall A Berg
Not a ringer a Bell! -
The name Fell
Then Rose from my lap -
More info at Caroline Bergvall's web site here
Listen to Caroline here
