Artist Biography

Kerry priest is an award-winning poet and interdisciplinary artist, working with text, performance, and sound design. She uses sound as a means to foreground the acoustic, psychological, and communal properties of language. Her work is often site-specific, and ritual-based.

Her pieces have appeared at the Royal Opera House, the Minack Theatre and on BBC Radio 3.  Her poem, ‘Medicine Wheel’, was nominated for the Forward prize and her pamphlet, The Bone Staircase, was published by Live Canon in 2020. She was named one of Eyewear’s Best New British and Irish Poets 2018.

Kerry was Co-Director of SOAK Live Art CIC, an experimental performance art platform in Plymouth. She now produces contemporary music events in Oxford for OCM, with a particular focus on audience development for experimental forms, and advocating for working class artists.

In a former life, Kerry was a DJ for a seminal London club night, Twat Boutique and has performed at the Royal Festival Hall, Latitude, Bestival, XOYO, Thekla and many more venues. She uses this experience in electronic music to advocate for women in tech and can often be found mentoring in audio production skills through community radio stations such as Soundart Radio.

IG: @kerrypriestess

Some recent musings:

I enjoyed playing Moog and field recordings alongside Rowan from Goblin Band in Lucinda Guy’s opera, The Fairy Temple, at the Cockpit Theatre in London for Tete a Tete, in September 2025. The juxtaposition of two keyboard instruments from 1000 years apart was such a trip, and something I intend to explore in my future work.

Most of my recent gigs have been in theatrical sound design. I used field recordings and a Moog synthesiser again to depict the sound world of a mollusc in Spiral, Giorgia Ciampi’s adaptation of Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics. For Lisa Schneidau and Sarah Hurley’s Chasing Crockern, we combined interviews with locals on the moors with field recordings, to accompany their storytelling show. 

Poetry has been my main obsession in recent years, and is still the art form in which I have the most depth of knowledge. I have been interested in how the body makes sounds through the vocal tract and out into space. This work has been informed by contemporary music practise and includes aspects of polyphony and choral poetry. I am also interested in silence and thinking and breath.

Since moving to the Dartmoor area ten years ago, I have been fortunate enough to meet many wise women and my work is informed by various ritual and folklore traditions learned from them. In the Alluvial Matters collaboration with Sarah Blissett, we investigated the archaeology and psycho-geography of tin deposits on Dartmoor.

My dual interests in poetry and sound have led me to make music theatre and opera works, including writing two librettos for Royal Opera House. Since co-curating SOAK Live art, my practise has also expanded to include aspects of experimental theatre, multi-disciplinary devising, and immersive forms.

As an undiagnosed ADHD-er, I have followed my creative nose into music, theatre, opera, installation, radio, and performance art, as I am constantly inspired by the lessons and outlooks that each art form provides.

I am currently producing events for Oxford Contemporary Music (OCM), and working on Dartmoor with Skylark FM to bring its depths to light through story, poetry and sound.

I am always open to new collaborations, and am pleased to offer mentoring and support on poetry and audio production. Contact me <<here>> to discuss the next steps in your/our creative journey.