Nattsong
Conversation in the Dark
DATE: 2 December 2021
Caroline Bergvall in conversation with Sukhdev Sandhu and Áine O’Brien
Sonic Atlas began with the outdoor sunrise work Ragadawn (2016) and closes at the end of 2021 with the dark and nocturnal circulating and dispersed voices of Nattsong.
The performance of Nattsong at Turner Contemporary marks the culmination of award-winning poet and artist Caroline Bergvall’s Sonic Atlas cycle of live works and their research into languages, landscapes, timezones, conversations, and writing in context.
Ghostly and spacious, Nattsong takes an immersive journey into refuge-seeking language sites; through the somatic and elemental connections of languages, their losses and challenges, often burdened by brutal nationalist or expansionist agendas, the inherently lived interdependence of beings and the wisdom voices at the heart of foundational texts and transhistoric times. Here following the alarm call of the Nordic prophetess’ epic Voluspå. Collaborators include: Jamie Hamilton, Gavin Bryars, Peyee Chen, Andrew Delaney.
NIGHT
What is found to have been lost
Made lost to stay lost
If findings carry losses
carry findings of losses
being found lessens losses
lightens what is carried
To celebrate the completion of this long-standing and complex series of works, I am excited to announce she will be joined in conversation with two wonderful speakers: cultural thinker, writer and Guardian critic Sukhdev Sandhu and curator and co-founder of Counterpoints Arts Áine O’Brien to reflect on aspects Nattsong, and the significance of night-time, and voyaging in the dark of our deeply agitated times.
Sukhdev Sandhu has a unique voice, a rich palette of concerns ranging from music, literature to chasing personal trails to the northern textile industry or looking for the nocturnal workers of London. He is the author of London Calling: How Black and South Asian Writers Imagined a City, I’ll Get My Coat, Night Haunts and Other Musics. He also directs the Colloquium for Unpopular Culture at New York University and runs the Texte und Töne publishing imprint.
Áine O’Brien is a singular and generous curatorial presence in the UK. She is co-Founder of Counterpoints Arts, London and its Curator of Learning and Research. Her productions span documentary film, print, exhibition and curation, exploring global storylines linking migration with human rights and social change. A forthcoming co-edited book is Art, Migration and the Production of Radical Democratic Citizenship (2021).
The structured conversation will last for approx. 50 minutes. It will be followed by a 30 minute open conversation and Q&A with the audience.
In conversation they will explore common themes and ideas, that run through her cycle Sonic Atlas and ave emerged over the course of this six-year cycle, including displacement and migratory properties of language, writing through multiple languages, water and sounds, regional and translocal bonds, collaborative modes, writing in context, and the value of communal exchange..
Specific to Nattsong, they will question the dark as a sign of gestation, insights, intimacy and also deep fears that enable the re-emergence of ancient collective archetypes, and art’s role as a collectivist wake up call. Diving into the unknown of the night at this time of collective upheavals provides a timely reminder of the need for marking a pause, as well as for opening up both to new imaginaries and perhaps other ways of doing things. How does one transform oneself and one another pro-actively in the face of deep changes?
BACKGROUND
Sonic Atlas is a series of works dedicated to sounding multiple languages, their migratory and historic paths, and respond creatively to both ancient and contemporary poetry by writing and performing in unusual and transformative landscapes and settings.
It follow a circadian cycle. It started with the sunrise performance Ragadawn moved into the afternoon and evening with the cross disciplinary conversation sound-work Conference of the Birds, went online during lockdown with the collaborative writing event Night & Refuge (2020) to come and close with the live and streamed performance Nattsong at the tail end of 2021.
These works and performances form companion pieces, written and created for spoken and sung voices, breath patterns, electronic sounds and are always set up site specifically to address on site questions of communal dislocations and new regional make-up. Each work also shares materials and concerns developed from conversations with speakers and poets from a wide range of minoritised languages, and their historically aware and contextual practices.
SUNRISE
RAGADAWN
Outdoor sunrise performance for 2 voices
Fleeting forms
take on adore
Alight a brightest
guided life
Ghost to ghost
amar unmoors
EVENING
CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS
Conversation-performance for 1 host, 6 speakers, migratory birds and treated songline.
Greetings! To each of you,
and of each of you more than you know,
and more of you than I know,