JB - Jay Bernard Archive
Reference code
JB
Level of description
Collection
Title
Jay Bernard Archive
Date/s
1973-2023
Quantity & Format
1 box Mixed
Subject
Authors, English -- 21st century
Poetry
Poetry
Creator
Bernard, JayAdministrative/Biographical history
Jay Bernard (FRSL) is an interdisciplinary writer and artist from London whose work is rooted in social histories. They have published three pamphlets, 'The Red and Yellow Nothing' (2016), 'English Breakfast' (2013) and 'Your Sign is Cuckoo, Girl' (2008), and their work has been featured in numerous anthologies, including 'Mapping the Future' (2023), '100 Queer Poems' (2022), 'TEN: The New Wave' (2014) and 'Out of Bounds: Black British Writers and Place' (2012). Jay was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2020 and winner of the 2017 Ted Hughes Award for their first collection 'Surge'. Recent work includes 'Blue Now', a live rendition of Derek Jarman’s film 'Blue'; 'Crystals of this Social Substance', a sound installation about young people, capitalism and money at the ‘21 Serpentine pavilion; 'Complicity', a pamphlet about colonial memory in the urban environment, based on the collection at the Tate; and 'The Last 7 Years', a digital and live sound piece produced by Art Angel. Jay is a DAAD literature fellow and a 2023/24 fellow at the Institute of Ideas and Imagination, Paris.
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
The collection has been loaned ('storehouse model') to the BACW by JB.
Scope and content
This catalogue entry, summarising the collection is just one of several routes through the archive of Jay Bernard (for traditional inventory see section 2 below).
Section One: the following resources are useful additional references to read when encountering the archive or preparing for a visit:
i) The 2002-2003 Mellon Foundation funded project which brought Bernard's archive to UEA employed a 'community led' methodology, discussed in detail in the publication: 'Towards a Centre for Contemporary Poetry in the Archive: Final Report' (published by the University of East Anglia and available via our Website www.uea.ac.uk/bacw or via the UEA's Publishing Project)
ii) Bernard wrote creatively inspired by the project and this writing is published separately in the pamphlet: 'Uncollected: Poets' (again available via our Website www.uea.ac.uk/bacw or via the UEA's Publishing Project).
iii) Working as a Poet in Residence on the project, alongside three other poets (Joelle Taylor, Anthony Vahni Capildeo and Gail McConnell) Bernard engaged in a conversation with the then Visiting Poetry Fellow, Will Harris, to discuss their creative process and their archive. An extract of this conversation is transcribed in the aforementioned: 'Towards a Centre for Contemporary Poetry in the Archive: Final Report'.
iv) A digital exhibition site: https://contemporarypoetryarchive.omeka.net/ contains videos of events relating to the project, where Bernard reflects on the process of archiving. In addition to Bernard's own writing and recorded reflections on the archive, the site contains exhibits from their archive, curated and interpreted by UEA postgraduate students. Finally, Bernard led a writing workshop at Great Yarmouth Public Library in Norfolk, in collaboration with the poet, Lotte LS, as part of the project and the public participants' responses are archived and a selection exhibited on the site.
Section Two: what follows is a more traditional inventory of the archive material deposited by Bernard.
The collection comprises 3 series. Use top right hand navigation to link to records describing the scope and content.
JB/1 Posters and visual art
JB/2 Public events
JB/3 Works
Section One: the following resources are useful additional references to read when encountering the archive or preparing for a visit:
i) The 2002-2003 Mellon Foundation funded project which brought Bernard's archive to UEA employed a 'community led' methodology, discussed in detail in the publication: 'Towards a Centre for Contemporary Poetry in the Archive: Final Report' (published by the University of East Anglia and available via our Website www.uea.ac.uk/bacw or via the UEA's Publishing Project)
ii) Bernard wrote creatively inspired by the project and this writing is published separately in the pamphlet: 'Uncollected: Poets' (again available via our Website www.uea.ac.uk/bacw or via the UEA's Publishing Project).
iii) Working as a Poet in Residence on the project, alongside three other poets (Joelle Taylor, Anthony Vahni Capildeo and Gail McConnell) Bernard engaged in a conversation with the then Visiting Poetry Fellow, Will Harris, to discuss their creative process and their archive. An extract of this conversation is transcribed in the aforementioned: 'Towards a Centre for Contemporary Poetry in the Archive: Final Report'.
iv) A digital exhibition site: https://contemporarypoetryarchive.omeka.net/ contains videos of events relating to the project, where Bernard reflects on the process of archiving. In addition to Bernard's own writing and recorded reflections on the archive, the site contains exhibits from their archive, curated and interpreted by UEA postgraduate students. Finally, Bernard led a writing workshop at Great Yarmouth Public Library in Norfolk, in collaboration with the poet, Lotte LS, as part of the project and the public participants' responses are archived and a selection exhibited on the site.
Section Two: what follows is a more traditional inventory of the archive material deposited by Bernard.
The collection comprises 3 series. Use top right hand navigation to link to records describing the scope and content.
JB/1 Posters and visual art
JB/2 Public events
JB/3 Works
Conditions governing access
In copyright
Conditions governing reproduction
All rights reserved. Reproduction for private research is only permitted with the permission of the archive and on completion of a copyright declaration.
- JB - Jay Bernard Archive