Elly Clarke
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I am an artist interested in the performance and the burden (‘the drag’) of the physical body in an increasingly digitally mediated world, as well as the snapping-to-grid of templates. I work with analogue and digital photography, video, music, and community-based projects – and [the archive of] #Sergina, a border-straddling, multi-bodied drag queen who, across one body and several, for close to fifteen years, sang and performed songs online and offline about love, lust and loneliness in the mesh of hyper-dis/connection. In this format, #Sergina (plural) performed in venues of all persuasions in the UK, Europe, Canada and the USA - including The Photographers Gallery, London; Brighton Digital Festival, SHOUT Festival, Birmingham; The Lowry, Salford Quays; and Bishopsgate Institute London as well as at academic conferences and symposiums. #Sergina has been shaped and embodied by many artists over this time, including Vladimir Bjelicic, Raul de Nieves, Katy Pendlebury, Thomas Doherty, Liz Rosenfeld, Matt Miwa, Kaajel Patel. Stephanie Telomore, Bon Mott, Kori Miles and Shiva Raichandani.
My obsession as an artist is really about relationships in the context of an ever shifting digital context, and how we interact, converse, love and understand one another. I have closely followed - and participated in - the release of each mainstream technological ‘development’ since the mid 1990s. And #Sergina (unexpectedly!) became the key (15 year) work through which I charted, responded to and shed light on things like mobile phone obsession, data extraction, shifts in working life, isolation and political polarisation.
I have exhibited my photographic, audio and performance work internationally, including at Galerie Wedding, Berlin; Kiasma, Helsinki; Franklin Furnace, New York; The Other Gallery, Banff, Canada, Milton Keynes Gallery and Techno Park Studios, Melbourne, and have taught widely - include at Munich Akademie den Bildene Kunste; Birmingham City University; Victoria College of the Arts, Melbourne; Coventry University; Central School of Speech and Drama in London, Goldsmiths, Central Saint Martins and BIMM London.
From 2008-13 I ran Clarke Gallery out of my 2-room apartment in Berlin, later taking exhibitions elsewhere and have curated extensively. In 2025. I completed my practice led PhD at Goldsmiths in Art. Exploring the drag of physicality in the digital age alongside a study of early netcast performances commissioned and presented by Franklin Furnace in New York, 1998-2000, the thesis can be read here.
My work is generally both collaborative and site responsive. Having made the decision to archive #Sergina, I am now seeking a site to show this fifteen year project, alongside moving back towards photography in its expanded form/s.
Lived Experience
I live between London and Felixstowe, finding that the tranquility of the latter helps me deal with and rejoice in the fullness of London. Each place enables me to think and perceive differently - the mix works well.
For 10 years I lived in Berlin, where I ran Clarke Gallery and was in a few different bands. I've also lived in Birmingham, Leeds, Colchester and New York. Behind all this tech obsessed stuff is a deep concern for ecology, the climate and education, which is crucial for getting ourselves to a better place politically, ecologically and in terms of human and planetary health.
In 2019, together with two other PhD researchers, I set up CHASE Climate Justice Network, through which we organised symposiums, sharing events, residencies and managed a small grants programme to support the production of site specific creative and artistic projects via an Open Call. More recently we devised and developed the Climate Justice Conversation Card game, to facilitate conversations between early researchers in the arts and humanities to consider the impact of research methods in the wider context of climate justice. Click HERE to play this game - with others! - online.
EDUCATION
2019 - 2025 PhD in Art from Goldsmiths, University of London. PhD title: Is My Body Out of Date? The Drag of Physicality in the Digital Age. Supervisors: Vikki Chalklin and Sarah Kember. Read the thesis here.
2002-3 MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins School of Art & Design, London. Thesis title: ‘Dispersed subjects: Wandering and Wondering in a mobile world.’ Read here.
2001-2 MA Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art, London (first year).
1995-8 First Class Degree in History of Art BA (Hons) University of Leeds.
RESIDENCIES & TRAINING:
2025 Month long residency at Telecom Tacheles, Bogota, Colombia
2024 Banff Summer Artist in Residence, (BAiR) The Banff Centre, Canada. 5-week residency with scholarship at Banff Centre for Art & Creativity where I worked on completing the practice element of my PhD and starting the process of archiving my 13-year-old drag character #Sergina - through photos, photograms, installation, indexes & performance.
2023 IXDM Fellow at Critical Media Lab, Basel, Switzerland, with Clareese Hill, including some teaching on the Experimental Design MA. Invited by Professor Helen Pritchard.
2022 Rendering Research, PhD workshops for transmediale at ERG in Brussels in association with the Centre for the Networked Image at London Southbank University and Aarhus University (together with Clareese Hil.)
2021 Sexuality Summer School, IPak Centar, Belgrad (online)
2021 Down Dwars Delà at Bidston Observatory - run by Constant
2020 VLTV, Vivid Projects, Birmingham - micro residency & film commission
2014 Distributed Intimacies, The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada (residency)
2010 Goldrausch Kunstlerinnen Projekt IT, Berlin
2007 Future of Idea Art, Banff Centre, Canada (residency)
2007-9 Four Corners Professional Development for Photographers, London
SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS / COMMISSIONS
2026 Half Crowns in their Petticoats - adaptation of 2012 project for permanent installation via QR codes scattered around The Exchange, Birmingham (the former site of the Birmingham Municipal Bank, to which the stories refer.) Commissioned by University of Birmingham. Listen here.
2025-6 PHALLUS :: FASCINUM:: FASCISM at The Box, Los Angeles, USA: https://theboxla.com/show.php?id=7520
2025 THE RIGHT TO PROTEST, ProRadix, Greatorex Street, E1
Exhibition & performance: https://greatorexstreet.com/proradix/
2024 #SERGINA’S DESPERATELY DELICIOUS DIRTY DATA DISSEMINATION. Three-time live performance and livestream as part of Open Studios The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada
2023 #Sergina's Stimulatingly Suggestive Song-Stuffed Seminar cum Webinar - Episode 2, at The Photographer's Gallery London Hybrid online/offline participatory performance onsite at The Photographer’s Gallery and online via Zoom, livestreamed to YouTube. Part of Screenwalks Weekend. Play it back.
2023 Artist in the Community, Axisweb (online)
Three commissioned events during the month of April:
- An Instagram Live Tour of Dragging the Archive with Pratt Archivist Cristina Fontánez Rodríguez
- A 2-hour workshop called Dragging Up an Exhibition, culminating in
an exhibition with a public access private view
2023 Dragging the Archive - a personal re:encounter with Franklin Furnace's cyber beginnings by Elly Clarke, Pratt Institute Libraries, Brooklyn, New York: https://franklinfurnace.org/dragging-the-archive/
2022 #Sergina's Desperately Delicious Dirty Data Delivery, Spill Think Tank, Ipswich
2021 Old Work and New, Hamilton MAS, Felixstowe, Suffolk
2020 #Sergina at The Knot, Ottawa, Canada (online, interactive, participatory.)
2020 Wandsworth Words, Commissioned by Wandsworth Borough of London
2019 How are you? #Sergina's Participatory Soap Opera about Wrestling with Wellbeing in the Digital Age, ONCA, Brighton - (solo #Sergina performance produced & performed with Vladimir Bjelicic)
2018 Queer Encounters King’s Cross
Everyman Cinema King’s Cross and at Fringe! Film Festival
27-minute single-shot film and 10 ‘Encounters’ about queer memories of King’s Cross in the 1980s, 90s and 00s.
2018 A Class(y) Lecture by Elly Clarke, Galerie Wedding, Berlin
Solo lecture performance leading to installation based on The George Richmond Portrait Project and themes of class, expectation, privilege, inheritance and belonging - and queerness.
2016 Darlings, I'm Ready for my Close Up - Fabrica Gallery with Brighton Digital Festival
2012 Change Settings, Techno Park Studios, Melbourne, Australia
2011 Moscow-Beijing (solo screening), Milton Keynes Gallery,
2010 Moscow-Beijing, Centre for Endless Progress, Berlin
2009 Time & Place, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich, London
2007 Moscow-Beijing, Globe Hub, North Shields, Newcastle
2006 Moscow-Beijing, Other Gallery, The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada
2003 The Broadway House Photo Project, Seven Seven, London Fields
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS / PERFORMANCES
2026 From the Garden of Communication to the Dark Forest of the Internet @ Artpool, Budapest
Revisiting Reiterating Returning to Franklin Furnace Archive
Performance lecture delivered remotely via live Screenshare
2024 Reflection on Exposure in a Room of Strangers @ Mesh Festival, Basel. 10-minute interactive performance lecture and workshop – with Clareese Hill https://meshfestival.ch/events/clareese-hill-elly-clarke/en
2024 REVIVING FEMINIST STRUGGLES, GROWING NEW WORLDS SYMPOSIUM, SOAS, University of London. Performance lecture and workshop as part of a panel entitled ARCHIVING FROM THE MARGINS. CARING, DRAGGING, REACTIVATING, with Althea Greenan from Women’s Art Library and Rosemary Grennan from The Feminist Library.
2023 Researching in Two Acts - Research Colloquium organised and delivered in collaboration with Clareese Hill @ Critical Media Lab, FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland https://criticalmedialab.ch/researching-in-two-acts/
2022 Rendering Research. Participant in collaboration with NYC based artist/researcher Clareese Hill. PhD workshop organised by Aarhus University & London Southbank University in association with ERG, Brussels for Transmediale, with live presentation at the festival, culminating in the publication journal: https://aprja.net/issue/view/9807
2022 Mixed Bag, group show by the Goldsmiths PhD Art Cohort, St James Hatcham Building, London
2022 Proxy Bodies 2.0, Chicago Art Department, Chicago, USA. Part 2 of exhibition I curated that began at Hamilton MAS in Felixstowe. This edition was curated by Galina Shevchenko.
2021 #Sergina's Stimulatingly Sexy Short Seminar about Data Collection, Bar Wotever, Royal Vauxhall Tavern. With Orrow Bell and Roux Malherbe as Handsome Boys. Watch here.
2021 #Sergina's Stimulatingly Sexy Song Stuffed Seminar cum Webinar. For Qwe’re London at Matchstick Piehouse Theatre, Deptford, London – performed simultaneously online (via Zoom) and offline (in person).
2020 OCCUPYING THE INBETWEEN for MARS, Goldsmiths (co-organiser) Online not-conference with a call for not-papers organised with fellow (NYC based) Goldsmiths art researcher Clareese Hill. We had a total of 8 invited speakers, 14 not-paper presenters and 80 people a4ending via Zoom. https://
occupyingthein-between.weebly.com/
2018-21 IS MY BODY OUT OF DATE? THE DRAG OF PHYSICALITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE. Networked performances connected via Skype or Zoom: with Vladimir Bjelicic via Skype at TRANSMEDIALE’s panel HARD FEELINGS: A CONVERSATION ON COMPUTATION & AFFECT in January 2018; at CHASE ENCOUNTERS at the Barbican London in November 2018; with Bon Mott & Sean Miles at EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE conference at Deacon University, Naarm/Melbourne, June 2019; with Stephanie Ballantine at IPAK’S SEXUALITY SUMMER SCHOOL, Belgrade, August 2022.
2020 Loud & Clear@ ONCA Gallery, Brighton – curated by Nadia Buyse. Live performance and video at group exhibition
2017 Phone Me Don’t Write @SOHO20 Gallery, Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York. Live Skype performance by #Sergina from a sofa in Tottenham to opening night of LINQOX CRISS ON THE RIVER ILISSUS. Curated by Amanda T Pohan.
2015-16 #Sergina’s Stimulatingly Sexy Simultaneous Simulation of Herself, as part of exhibition Right Here / Right Now at The Lowry, Salford Quays Commission for simultaneous online/offline networked performance that took place at the Lowry, Salford Quays, with simultaneous performers performing from and in The Island in Bristol, Monster Ronson’s Ichiban Kareoke in Berlin, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn & in Belgrade. Curator: Karen Newman.
2016 AN ORGY OF ALGORITHMS AND OTHER DESIRES AND DISTRACTIONS Munchen Akademie der Bildenden Kunste, Networked Performance Lecture with Vladimir Bjelicic via Skype
2015 Screening of three #Sergina music videos at FRINGE! Festival in London
2015 Phone Me, Don’t Write & Other Tales of Sex and Love in the Digital Age mit #Sergina, Kunstquartier Bethanien - performance
2015 Screening of three Sergina films at Scottish Queer International Film Festival & performance
2015 Camden Encounters, The Roundhouse & online
Year-long commission Camden Council as part of #Camden50 to produce a series of artistic photo/audio/video encounters with 21 residents of the Borough of Camden. Curator: Charlie Levine. https://camden50.co.uk/projects/camden
2015 Sergina at Painted Ladies, The Club, Neukoelln, Berlin: live performance
2015 Sergina at Pansy’s Drag Race, Sudblock, Berlin (performance)
2014 Inheritance / act_out, GSL Projekt, Berlin (artist & curator)
2014 Instantaneous Culture by Sergina at The Shag, Gallery 223, London. Live performance
2014 Sex Without Bodies, Temporary Agency, Queens, New York
2014 The Moving Image Project, Baroda; Christchurch, London; New York.
2014 Delineator, A3 Project Space, Birmingham
2013 On Looking, Galapagos Kunsthalle, DUMBO, New York. Curated by Daniel Kingery
2013 Half Crowns in their Petticoats, Birmingham as part of Thrift Radiates Happiness, Birmingham Municipal Bank. Curated by Charlie Levine. Site-specific audio commission & installation of interviews with people who used to work for Birmingham’s Municipal Bank in the bank's former HQ building. http://ellyclarke.com/index.php?/news/half-crowns-in-their-petticoats/
2012-3 Band/Ties, ARTicle gallery, BIAD, Birmingham & WIP Konsthall, Stockholm
2012 Absence/Presence, Hotel Paravant at Tete, Berlin. Curated by Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez.
2011 Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin
2010 Glass Crash Feeling - Goldrausch 2010, Galerie September, Berlin
2009 The End.. And? The Latin Collector / Frederico Sevres, New York
2008 NeMe: In Transition: Russia 2008, Museum of Fine Arts, Ekaterinburg & NCCA, Moscow
2008 Filmobile, London Gallery West, University of Westminster, London
2007 The Journey/Moscow to Beijing, London Gallery West. Two-person show with Joram ten Brink
2006 Capturing the Moving Mind, Kiasma Museum, Helsinki
2005-6 All for Show, UK video works, Multiple venues internationally. Curated by Lee Campbell.
2005 Mobility & Hospitality: The ethics of social relations in a mobile world. Lancaster University.
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
2025-ongoing Co-Curator, Furtherfield, Felixstowe. Working with Ruth Catlow and a small team towards creating a series of public engaging events and activities as part of Furtherfield's 2025/6 project Reimagine This Coastal Town https://reimaginethis.life/
2023 Dragging the Archive - a personal re:encounter with Franklin Furnace's Cyber Beginnings by Elly Clarke, Pratt Institute Libraries
Installed in vitrines across three floors of the Pratt library, this onsite/online exhibition was accompanied by a series of events including a workshop on reading archival materials with Pratt archivist Cristina Fontánez Rodríguez; a collaborative seminar with my Goldsmiths MFA Curating students & Professor Kim Bobier’s undergraduates from Pratt; a Virtual Tour, a closing panel with Martha Wilson and a recommission of the very first Franklin Furnace Netcast from 1998, streamed live from the Alumni Reading Room 25 years later to the day. Supported by Michael Asher Foundation; The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on the Arts, the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; Pratt Institute; The Silicon Valley Community Foundation; CHASE DTP, and the Board of Directors, members, and friends of Franklin Furnace Archive.
Link to online exhibition: https://franklinfurnace.org/dragging-the-archive/ Video tour: https://franklinfurnace.org/dragging-the-archive-virtual-tour/
2023 Dragging the Archive - Kings, Queens and Things, Bishopsgate Institute, London. Co-curator with Orlando Myxx of an event celebrating the donation of the 5 TB Myxx drag archive to Bishopsgate Institute. Alongside co-curating the event I hosted the night as #Sergina with three invited drag performers, did a lecture (in half drag) about the drag of the (Bishopsgate) archive and made a film by #Sergina called ‘Dragging in the Archive’
2021 Proxy Bodies (artist & curator), Hamilton MAS, Felixstowe. Group exhibition curated as part of a 3 month PhD placement at Hamilton MAS with artists Clareese Hill, Galina Shevchenko, Dominique Savitri Bonarjee, Bryony Graham and a live sonic response by Loula Yorke. Supported by CHASE Doctoral Training Programme. In 2022 this exhibition was re-framed and re-curated by Galina Shevchenko and shown at Chicago Art Department.
2014 Inheritance / Act_Out (artist & curator)
GSL Projekt, Berlin - 3 person photographic exhibition with work by Elly Clarke, Kerstin Hoenit & Lisa Jugert on themes of family, memory, inheritance, storytelling and photography.
http://www.ellyclarke.com/index.php?/news/inheritance--actout/
2008-13 Clarke Gallery. Set up initially in Elly Clarke’s flat in Berlin, Clarke Gallery later brought exhibitions to other places via mobile exhibitions WUNDERKAMMER, The Mobility Project & FRAME_birmingham. Venues include Franklin Furnace, New York; mac Birmingham; Eastern Edge, St Johns, Canada; Galerie Suvi Lehtinen, Berlin; Meter Room, Coventry; The Old Joint Stock & TROVE in Birmingham.
2012-13 FRAME_birmingham. Arts Council funded, mac birmingham & Own Art supported curatorial project by Elly Clarke, which saw unique works by 41 local & international artists installed & for sale in 31 different venues across the city of Birmingham, from the Cathedral to a nail salon. Mirrored online. Video Interview with Elly Clarke by Axisweb: https://vimeo.com/59582800 Link to project text by Anna Canby Monk: https://ellyclarke.com/files/finalframeguide.pdf
2012 BERLIN / BIRMINGHAM / BEYOND / (Allotment 9 Plots)
Clarke Gallery at mac birmingham. A three- part 9-month long exhibition of six artists at a time (18 in total) from Berlin, Birmingham and elsewhere, where only one work was on show at any given time. This work was for sale, and when it was sold the buyer selected the next work to be shown out of a pre-curated portfolio. Artists included Barbara Walker, Cathy Wade, Nurul Huda, Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez and Linda Franke. http://ellyclarke.com/index.php?/clarkegallery/berlin--birmingham--beyond-/
2011-12 THE MOBILITY PROJECT
Galerie Suvi Lehitinen, Berlin & Meter Room, Coventry (artist & curator). Featuring work by artists from Berlin and Coventry. Both events also had panel discussions with external invited speakers, including Director of Mostyn in Llandudno, Alfredo Crameroti. The Coventry part was supported by a grant from Arts Council West Midlands. http://ellyclarke.com/index.php?/clarkegallery/
the-mobility-project/
2010-11 WUNDERKAMMER,
Clarke Gallery, Berlin & Eastern Edge Gallery, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada & Franklin Furnace, New York & TROVE, Birmingham. Suitcase-sized exhibition containing works by artists from Berlin and beyond, which picked up additional pieces as it went.
http://ellyclarke.com/index.php?/clarkegallery/current-exhibitionwunderkammer/
PRINT / WEB
2024 The Drag of the Archive
Part of a special edition of Art & its Publics titled ‘Queer(ing) art, curation and Collaboration’, Volume 13, Number 1. https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00098_7
2023 WRITING FROM THE ______ (with Clareese Hill)
Studies in Theatre & Performance Journal, Volume 42, Issue 2. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682761.2022.2141201
2022 RE:SEARCHING TOGETHER (with Clareese Hill)
A Peer Reviewed Journal about Research/APRJA
https://aprja.net//article/view/134310
2021 Mixtape / Shuffle Play, (together with Clareese Hill). For Open Call as part of Theatre and Performance Journal.
2020 Is My Body Out of Date? The Drag of Physicality in the Digital Age, IDEA Journal
2020 An Orgy of Algorithms and Other Desires and Deviations, in ‘Hybrid Ecologies’ Published by Diaphanes and The University of Chicago Press. Eds: Marietta Kestling, Maria Muhle, Jenny Nachigall, Susanne Witzgall.
2020 How are you? How are you feeling right now? Wrestling with Wellbeing when all the world’s a screen, CHASE Feminist Network
2019 A conversation between Elly Clarke and Liv Fontaine, Sluice Magazine, Spring/Summer 2019
2015 Laughing Inverts – conversation with artist Lena Rosa Haendel in her monograph, Kehler publishers
2015 Camden Encounters for Camden Council (web based):
2015 Digital Remnants: Sex Without Bodies, - with co authored with Pohan, M Ty and Robin McDonald. GUTS Magazine, Canada
2014 Delineator, edited by Cathy Wade / A3 Project Space
2013 Thrift Radiates Happiness, catalogue produced to accompany exhibition in the Municipal Bank
2012 Connected Isolation/ Isolated Connectedness: Curated feature by Elly Clarke for Culturehall.com
2012 Change Settings: Beiiing. Review by Lisa Radford of solo show at Techno Park Studios
2012 4 page A4 guide to accompany FRAME_birmingham, with essay by Anna Canby Monk
2010 Alternative Funding Strategies by David Trigg, Rant 47, Axisweb
2010 24/7 Contact. Monograph catalogue produced by Goldrausch, Berlin. Essay by Erin Manns.
2009 Beautiful Triggers - review of Time & Place by Lee Campbell in ArtVehicle 44
2007 The Journey / Moscow to Beijing, Catalogue produced to accompany exhibition at LGW
2006 The Trans Siberian Photo Project by Elly Clarke (pdf), Framework, Issue 4/ Permanent Transience
AWARDS / GRANTS
2018-23 CHASE Doctoral Scholarship for my PhD at Goldsmiths
2014 Scholarship from The Banff Centre for Distributed Intimacies Residency
2014 ACE Grants for the Arts grant for The George Richmond Portrait Project (R&D)
2013 Scholarship from Aedas Architects for Thrift Radiates Happiness commission
2012 ACE Grants for the Arts grant for FRAME_birmingham
2011 ACE Grants for the Arts grant for Mobility Project at Meter Room
2010 The De Laszlo Foundation for The George Richmond Portrait Project
2006 Scholarship from The Banff Centre for Future of Idea Art residency
2005 Grant from the Swedish School of Economics for Capturing the Moving Mind
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