Giving a Syntax to the Cry: Caroline Bergvall’s Drift

This essay offers a Deleuzian reading of Drift (2014), a multilingual project by the cross-disciplinary artist Caroline Bergvall. It argues that the text- and performance-project promotes forms of deterritorialization that give radical witness to the contemporary humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean where thousands of people drown each year as they try to reach Europe. In breaking down barriers between languages, the artistic work employs non-representational modes of address to reflect on what it means to lack citizenship and recognition in the context of the crisis. My close readings challenge post-colonial accusations that the writings of Deleuze and Guattari are at best utopian and at worst politically naïve and without purchase on the real-life catastrophes of Fortress Europe. Instead, Deleuzian strategies are shown to enable Bergvall to actualize a multilingual politics of speech and performance that points towards the historical and contemporary imbrications of the West in mass-drownings of recent years.