Caroline Bergvall: “There’s a muscularity to the text.”

In Caroline Bergvall’s interdisciplinary artistry, the body and the voice become a tool. Her explorations of sound-making are physical. As a poet of French-Norwegian nationalities, Bergvall lives in England and works across media and languages.

“There’s a muscularity to the text,” she says of a handful of recent performative pieces exploring the effort of breathing in relation to speaking. Together allows for a transmission of voice and body and breath. And to the ears, it spirals into cadence. Breath. Voice. Throb. Pulse. Beat.

Earlid’s curator, Joan Schuman, and Seth Guy, sound-artist and creator of The LiteraryMix, found resonance in Bergvall’s work during their conversation in Earlid’s winter 2017, (A) Generative Engine.

Image of Bergvall vocalizing DRIFT at performance space Norrlandsoperan in Umea, Sweden, 2014, with Ingar Zach, percussion; visual artist Thomas Köppel, digital text; and photographer, Helena Wikström.

Audio portrait produced by Joan Schuman, originally for a series of conversations with artists at Trickhouse, 2014.

Full performance of Bergvall’s Together finishes the interview. Visit Caroline Bergvall for more projects.