“Bervin produces fastidious and often collaboratively made artifacts that resist scholarly conclusiveness for the purpose of illuminating the process of understanding.” –Jessica Baran, Artforum

Published for the first survey exhibition of Connecticut-based poet and visual artist Jen Bervin (born 1972)—well known for her artist’s book Nets and her work on/with Emily Dickinson—Shift Rotate Reflect features 23 individual and collaborative projects from 1997 to 2020: installations, artist's books, embroideries, videos, drawings, prints and performances that demonstrate the range of Bervin’s interdisciplinary researches, from the legacies of women artists and writers to relationships between text and textiles and abstractions of language and landscape. The book features an essay by academic Jayme Collins, a conversation on the multichannel video and textile installation Su Hui’s Picture of the Turning Sphere with collaborator Charlotte Lagarde and Jen Yee, and a newly commissioned 20-page discussion with writer Claudia Rankine.

Visual artist(s): Jen Bervin
Text by: Jayme Collins
Interviewer(s): Claudia Rankine, Jennifer Yee