Projects
2025 No Way Out But Your Footsteps / Maladaptive Daydreaming / Sick Note (video/essay trilogy)
2024-27 Book project, forthcoming Faber 2027
2017-18 Marriage is Punishment for Shoplifting in Some Countries: a close reading of Wayne’s World (series of 3 essays)
2016 London’s Hottest Grassroots Arts Spaces (mail project)
Exhibitions and events
2022 Let The Song Hold Us, FACT, Liverpool (group)
2021 Beano: The Art of Breaking the Rules, Somerset House (group)
2021 Uncertain Data, FACT, Liverpool (group)
2019 All His Ghosts Must Do My Bidding, Wysing Arts Centre (group)
2018-19 Ex-Baldessarre exhibitions, Bedford: Estate of Hermione, Silly Symphony, Sour Persimmons Chasm (texts)
2018 Marriage is Punishment for Shoplifting in Some Countries, Flat Time House, London (Wayne’s World screening and discussion)
2017 Award Machine, Grrrr! London (event)
2017 Truth Machine, Grrrr! London (group)
2015 LUSTRE FABRICS, Saltaire Arts Trail (solo)
2014 The Pure Ideology Personal Brand Workshop, Legion TV, London (performance/workshop)
Writing and publications
2025 Writing about contemporary art for: The Wire, Tribune, Corridor 8, Burlington Contemporary, Art Licks and more (ongoing since 2017)
2021 Excavate: The Wonderful & Frightening World of The Fall, Faber (co-editor with Bob Stanley)
2020 Wysing Broadcasts: current research playlist
2019 The Fields Here Are Full of Ghosts, limited edition looseleaf publication, Wysing Polyphonic
2019 Pivotal Moments, ed. Sonya Dyer, SPACE/London Creative Network (contributor)
2019 “Becoming Baby: Stupidity, boredom, time and escape” in Doggerland: A reader on Sociality & Idiocy (essay)
2018 “Some Notes on Wayne’s World, Cruelty, Kindness and Radical Vulnerability,” The Bad Vibes Club Reader (essay)
2017 Marriage is Punishment for Shoplifting in Some Countries (email newsletter)
2017 “Digital Voodoo, or Tragedy Plus Time,” Laugh magazine #3
2014 “At Home He’s a Tourist,” Lots of Planets Have a North
2014 “Art Theory Urban Dictionary,” Hoax #3
Awards and residencies
2020-21 Jerwood Arts / FACT Digital Fellowship
2020 Longlisted, UEA New Forms Award for experimental fiction
2018 Residency at Wysing Arts Centre
Talks, readings and podcasts
2025 Bradford City of Culture podcast
2023 Bradford Literature Festival
2022 FACT Liverpool
2021 Aye Write, Glasgow
2021 Festival of Words, Halifax
2021 Excavate! Panel with Adelle Stripe and Bob Stanley, Manchester Literature Festival, HOME
2021 FACT Podcast: I’ve Got The Power! Voice notes exchange with Shonagh Short
2021 Excavate! Book launch, Rough Trade, London
2021 Backlisted podcast (Excavate!, with Bob Stanley)
2021 Bigmouth podcast (Excavate!, with Bob Stanley)
2021 Little Atoms podcast (Excavate!, with Bob Stanley)
2021 Word In Your Ear: The Folklore of The Fall podcast (Excavate!, with Bob Stanley)
2020 Print Perform Present, The Tetley, Leeds
2019 Montez Press Radio (Doggerland live broadcast)
2019 Doggerland Podcast #3: Becoming Baby
2019 Silly Symposium, Ex-Baldessarre, Bedford (group performance)
2018 Wysing Arts Centre residency event: Reading & in conversation with Lucy Mercer
2018 Shady Todmorden #3, curated by Roy Claire Potter
2018 Pivotal Moments: Reading & in conversation with Donna Lynas
2016 Children are the Shock Troops of Gentrification, Liverpool Biennial
2014 Lots of Planets Have a North, The Tetley, Leeds
Research
2023 Researcher/additional material, Hermione: Kingdom of the Sick (Andy Holden), exhibited British Art Show, Whitworth Gallery, Manchester and Gallery of Everything, London
2017 Researcher, Abstractions of Holderness, Bob Stanley/Esther Johnson film, Hull City of Culture
Selected press
Radio 4, Front Row, Let The Song Hold Us review: “A standout…it was the poetry that held me, just beautiful poetry”
The Guardian, Let The Song Hold Us (****): “Norton’s conversational tone is soothing, but the content is probing”
Bookforum, Excavate reviewed by Sasha Frere-Jones: “my favourite expansion on Smith’s work is Tessa Norton’s essay”
4 Columns, Excavate reviewed by Sukhdev Sandhu: “Norton argues [The Fall are] less a band than a counter syllabus”
Louder Than War, Excavate reviewed by Audrey Golden: “feels like a Mark E. Smith version of the Arcades Project”
Elephant Magazine: The making of a truly radical arts centre (Wysing feature, 2019)
FAD Magazine: All His Ghosts Must Do My Bidding (2019)
Education
MA Cultural & Critical Studies, Birkbeck, University of London
BA Law (hahahaha), University of Cambridge
Current practice
Creative Studio: West Riding Arts Research (with Bob Stanley)
Director, Overnight Sensation artist-led social enterprise
Writer: arts, culture, essays, criticism
Former: Tutor, Liverpool John Moores University (2022-23); Board member, LUX film (2017-23)
Tessa Norton 