Gabrielle Civil
black feminist performance artist
Gabrielle Civil is a black feminist performance artist, poet, and writer, originally from Detroit, MI. She has premiered over fifty performance art works worldwide, most recently the déjà vu—live (2022), Jupiter (2021) and Vigil (2021). Her performance memoirs include Swallow the Fish (2017), Experiments in Joy (2019), (ghost gestures) (2021), and the déjà vu (2022). Her writing has also appeared in New Daughters of Africa, Teaching Black, Kitchen Table Translation, Migrating Pedagogies, and Experiments in Joy: a Workbook. A 2019 Rema Hort Mann LA Emerging Artist, she teaches creative writing and critical studies at the California Institute of the Arts. The aim of her work is to open up space.