David Bergé’s works transform everyday life and objects into time- and book-based forms that are often participatory. His projects emerge from extended research processes, conceptual excavations, personal encounters, interdisciplinary collaborations, and the critical interrogation of sites and their historical narratives.
He is mainly known for his Walk Pieces: immersive experiences in which audiences join the artist for a walk in silence, sliding along and piercing through the physical, social, and climatic conditions of urban space, exposing hidden power structures and social wounds at times closed, often still open.
Recent works have taken the form of material writing and publishing, centered around the archaeology of moods and emotions. They also explore expressions of desire, affect and pain, urban and industrial histories, and human geographies in an ongoing exploration of the human experience and its relationship with the built environment.
David Bergé is the founding director of the publishing project PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPANDED PUBLISHING ATHENS, which currently produces the imprints kyklàda.press and Time Based Editions, as well as several books co-published with Spector Books and Jap Sam Books, among others.
Working primarily with site-specificity, David Bergé has been invited to artist-in-residence programs around the world, such as Pivô (São Paulo); The Cape Cod Modern House Trust (Wellfleet, USA); Beta-Local (San Juan, Puerto Rico); geoAIR (Tbilisi); Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin, curator: Andre Lepecki); and the Saari Residence of the Kone Foundation in Finland.
David Bergé’s work has been commissioned by and presented at KANAL Centre Pompidou Brussels (2025); M HKA, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (2021); Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden (SKD, 2018); Kunsthal Extra City in Antwerp (2018, 2015, 2016); Thessaloniki State Museum of Contemporary Art (2018); Out of Sight, a venue for contemporary art in Antwerp (2019); Z33 / Atelier Bouwmeester in Brussels (2017); Contemporary Art Center in Vilnius (CAC, 2015); STUK arts center in Leuven (2017, 2013); SALT, Istanbul (2011); KCB Belgrade (2022, 2013); NETWERK Center for Contemporary Art, Aalst (2019, 2015, 2012, 2009); Maison Particulière, Brussels (2014); Gati New Delhi (2011); TanzQuartier Wien, Vienna (2010); and Kunsthaus Muerz, Muerzzuschlag (2012).