Caroline Bergvall’s Night & Refuge is a public collaborative writing event between five UK-based poets – Vahni Capildeo, Will Harris, Leo Boix, Nisha Ramayya, and Mays Albaik – which took place over Zoom during the Covid-19 lockdown.
This unique event happened online on 20 May 2020 between 6-9pm BST, and spanned many time-zones. This short film, edited to be visually and sonically startling, shows the five poets exchanging thoughts and processes while developing the shared poem.
Curator and host-poet Caroline Bergvall had set a brief loosely inspired by the tradition of Renga – an ancient and strict rule-bound Japanese form of collective writing. The motifs to be explored followed the phases of the night and asked: what is the night, what is refuge, how does one seek refuge during this pandemic confinement?
The writing in progress was made visible to the poets and audiences alike through a Digital Writing Desk developed with visual artist Mays Albeik.
Find out more about the poets here.
Night & Refuge is a project within Bergvall’s ongoing cycle of interdisciplinary perfomances Sonic Atlas, which explores languages in movement and in transfomation through speech, sounds, songwork in a range of performative situations. It began with Ragadawn (2016), staged at daybreak in locations as diverse as Marseille and the Isle of Skye, and continued with Conference of the Birds (2018) a discussion soundwork first presented at Whitstable Biennale 2018.
Hosted by event partners Cement Fields and Counterpoints Arts, and co-hosted by Festival of Hope, Versopolis. This event was made possible with funding from Arts Council England and support from Cement Fields and Counterpoints Arts.
Credits
Filmed and edited by Andrew Delaney.
Sound design by Jamie Hamilton.
Produced by Caroline Bergvall.