Clare Whistler 

Artist Poet Choreographer Collaborator

Clare makes work in performance, site-specific work in the landscape, poetry, music and visual art. Her international career as a dancer, choreographer and director has included fifteen years working in opera and education and community projects. She has been artist in residence at many locations, including The Library of Water, Iceland, Banff in Canada, and at the Centre of the History of Emotions, Queen Mary University, London (Leverhulme), where she produced her Tear Treasury. With visual artist Charlotte Still Clare is the creator/collaborator of WATERWEEK an annual event based in the Pevensey Levels in East Sussex. She is a member of the Cuckmere & Pevensey Levels Catchment Partnership for water management. She also teaches on local creative writing courses, and on the liberal arts programme at Stanford University. Co-founded Elephant - A small press, with long term collaborator designer Raphael Whittle. Recent publications include Poemish & Other Languages (2019, co-editor with Kay Syrad), Gifts (2017), with poems in Envoi, Poems for a Liminal Age, (ed. M. Pannett) and prose in Dark Mountain, ‘Techne’ Edition. Clare co-runs eco-poetics courses with Kay Syrad at the environmental art gallery ONCA in Brighton, Knepp Wildland and Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.

 


Explore

Current and future projects, June 2019 –
WATERWEEK Charlotte Still & Clare Whistler
Kin’d & kin’d Kay Syrad & Clare Whistler
Ritual Burial
Elephant – A small press

Archive site
About

Clare Whistler

 

Clare Whistler is a respected interdisciplinary artist who works in performance, site-specific work, poetry, music, visual art, landscape and with communities. Last year Clare published Gifts, the book of a ten year collaborative project based on eight objects that were traditionally given to welcome a new child into the world. As a collaborative artist she responds and creates with people, places and the elements and is always looking for new ways to encourage and inspire creativity in others. She has been collaborating with Charlotte Still on WATERWEEK a free annual festival celebrating and exploring aspects of water in Sussex for five years. They have walked the lengths of local rivers, found the sources of drinking water, dug ponds and held ‘ponderings’. She has had a 35 year career as a professional dancer, choreographer and director internationally including 15 years in opera and community projects; movement, dance and gesture infuse all her work. Clare is a trustee for ProjectArtWorks, Hastings and ONCA, Brighton. Her work breaks down the boundaries between art disciplines and hopes to offer insight, feeling and moments of timeless beauty.