b. 1982 Southend-on-Sea, England

Tris Vonna-Mitchell is a storyteller by trade. His performed monologues interweave autobiography with strands of history, art, and geography to create narratives that blur the line between fact and fiction. As with all storytelling, the art is as much in the delivery as it is in the story itself: Vonna-Mitchell will often begin his recitations in a languid, even tone, but their coherence slowly degenerates into torrents of words. Once his narratives reach a fever pitch, it becomes evident that Vonna-Mitchell has become trapped in a dense maze of language, out of which he cannot extricate himself. The notion of language as a tool that, while useful, can just as easily dissolve meaning as create it, is one that is shared by many of Vonna-Mitchell’s peers.