KARINE POLWART is a writer, musician, and storyteller whose work evokes a richness of place, hidden histories, scientific enquiry and folklore. Across multi-artist collaborations and intimate solo performances, poetic essays and picture books, theatre projects and radio documentaries, she conjures the beauty and magic, the sorrow and darkness of the world out of the corner of her eye, with lyricism and tenderness. Trees and rocks speak. Birds flit in and out of vision. And the intimate particularities of the people and landscapes she knows and loves reflect the complexities of the wider world, and our contested times.
Karine is currently Dr Gavin Wallace Fellow for 2025-26 via the Fruitmarket, Edinburgh and Creative Scotland. Her research and writing under the brief ‘Attached to Land’ is focused on the coastal edge lands and stone ridges of the Forth Valley, East Lothian and Borders.
She was a Paul Hamlyn Composer Fellow 2023-25, in collaboration with sound designer and composer, Pippa Murphy.
Karine’s recent work encompasses: Windblown (Raw Material Arts) - a parting glass to an old palm tree at Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden, and a hymn to gardeners and grieving; Looking for the Thread, a 2025 collaborative album with Grammy Award winning US artist, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and renowned Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis; massed participative choir initiatives, The Back of the Winter, Come Away In and Sing to the Dark; Spell Songs, a multi-artist lyrical, musical and artistic response to environmental loss; andWind Resistance, her paean to moorlands and midwifery, via The Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh.
REVIEWS FOR WINDBLOWN, August 2025 - touring Spring 2026 in Scotland
“powerful, exquisite, pure magic” - The Scotsman ★★★★★
“a remarkable piece of storytelling, quiet and serene, as subtle as it is smart” - The Financial Times ★★★★★
“a work of monumental beauty” - The Herald ★★★★★
AND BEYOND
A spellbinding storyteller … pays attention to the stuff that our society doesn’t usually notice.
Irish Times ★★★★★
One of the finest singer-songwriters in Britain
The Guardian ★★★★★