Helen Cammock ( ; born 1970) is a British artist. She was shortlisted for the 2019

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

and was awarded the prize along with the other three nominees (

Tai Shani Tai Shani (born 1976) is a British artist. Shani uses performance, film, photography, sculptural installations and experimental texts to explore forgotten histories and stories. She is currently a Tutor in Contemporary Art Practice at the Roya ...

Oscar Murillo Oscar Murillo (born 1986 in La Paila, Colombia) is an artist working within the painting tradition. He currently lives and works in various locations. Curator and writer Legacy Russell has said that the artist explores "the body in transit", whi ...

and

Lawrence Abu Hamdan Lawrence Abu Hamdan (born 1985, in Amman) is a contemporary artist based in Beirut. His work looks into the political effects of listening, using various kinds of audio to explore its effects on human rights and law. Because of his work with soun ...

). For the first time ever, they asked the jury to award the prize to all four artists and their request was granted. She works in a variety of media including moving image, photography, poetry, spoken word, song, printmaking and installation.

Life and work

Cammock was born in 1970 in Staffordshire, England. She grew up in London and Somerset. Her Jamaican father was a ceramicist and art teacher. Cammock's film 'Character Building' deals with the acts of racism that she, her sister, and mother faced for being a mixed-race family. Cammock worked for 10 years as a social worker. At the age of 35, Cammock began her studies in Photography at the

Royal College of Arts The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It off ...

, followed by study at the

University of Brighton The University of Brighton is a public university based on four campuses in Brighton and Eastbourne on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achieve ...

. Following the award of the Max Mara Art Prize in 2018, Cammock travelled across

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

to Florence, Rome, Palermo, Bologna, Venice and Reggio Emilia. She filmed a performance on

Beatrice Cenci Beatrice Cenci (; 6 February 157711 September 1599) was a Roman noblewoman who murdered her father, Count Francesco Cenci. She was beheaded in 1599 after a lurid murder trial in Rome that gave rise to an enduring legend about her. Life Beatri ...

's spinet in Bologna. Her work, ''Che si può fare'', was made during this time in Italy, which is an exploration into women's

lament A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about somethin ...

, an important theme in much of Cammock's work. Cammock's work often seeks to connect women's stories and voices across time, with common themes of oppression,

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

resistance, and solidarity, and exploring intersections of gender and race, the collective and the individual.

Exhibitions

* 2020 - ''They Call It Idlewild'' at

Wysing Arts Centre Wysing Arts Centre is a contemporary arts residency centre and campus for artistic production, experimentation and learning in South Cambridgeshire, England. The centre was established in 1989 and completed a £1.7 million capital developm ...

The exhibition consisted of video and installed billboards across the Wysing Arts Centre site, with dialogue and text including questions "''Can you remember when you last did nothing? When you last did nothing, can you remember how it felt?"''. Although made before the

2020 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

took hold, Erica Scourti noted in her review that "Cammock's static camera, placed originally to linger on interior details of Wysing's studio spaces, accommodation and grounds, all places of artistic activity now dormant, seems to anticipate our arrested motion". * 2019 - ''Che si può fare,'' which premiered at th
Whitechapel Gallery, London
in summer 2019 and was shown at the Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy in 2019-2020. At the

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

, "The main work is a three-channel film featuring interviews with activists, musicians, historians and artists from Cammock's time in Italy." The lives and work of women

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

composers,

Barbara Strozzi Barbara Strozzi (also called Barbara Valle; baptised 6 August 1619 – 11 November 1677) was an Italian composer and singer of the Baroque Period. During her lifetime, Strozzi published eight volumes of her own music, and had more secular ...

Francesca Caccini Francesca Caccini (; 18 September 1587 – after 1641) was an Italian composer, singer, lutenist, poet, and music teacher of the early Baroque era. She was also known by the nickname "La Cecchina" , given to her by the Florentines and probably a ...

, Lucrezia Vizzana are also explored. A reviewer for the

London Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

noted that "its abiding message is of inspiring resistance to oppressive forces". * 2019 - ''The Long Note'
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
* 2018 - ''The Long Note'
Void, Derry, Northern Ireland
''The Long Note'' was nominated for the Turner Prize, and shown at

Turner Contemporary Turner Contemporary is one of the UK’s leading contemporary art galleries. Celebrating Margate’s connection with the painter J.M.W. Turner (1775 – 1851), an artist who believed that art could be an agent of change, its year-round exhibition ...

in Margate, Kent, UK. The film and installation examines the civil rights movement in Derry, with a particular focus on the role of women, and makes connections between Irish civil rights and Black civil rights. In several sequences, Cammock combines found footage of

Nina Simone Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone (), was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, ...

with footage from the

Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...

. * 2017 - ''Shouting in Whispers'
Cubitt Gallery, London

Awards

* 2018 –

Max Mara Art Prize for Women The Max Mara Art Prize for Women is a biennial arts prize awarded to a young female artist working in the United Kingdom. It is organized by the Max Mara fashion company and the Whitechapel Gallery in London. The prize includes a six-month residen ...

*2019 - Turner Prize

References

External links

* * Fite-Wassilak, Chris (17 April 2018)
"A New Voice: Helen Cammock Wins the 2018 Max Mara Prize for Women@
''

Frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Cammock, Helen 1970 births Living people English contemporary artists British contemporary artists

Life and work

Exhibitions

Awards

See also

References

External links