Lansdown Centre

Helen is a UK-based artist working predominantly in video and photography. Helen’s work was selected for New Contemporaries in 1998 and since then she has been exhibiting internationally (inc. Yvon Lambert, Paris, Kari Kenetti, Helsinki and the Centre for Photographie in Geneva). Her films and video works have also been shown at international festivals and screening events including the Commonwealth Film Festival, the Lux and the international Film Festival 700IS, Iceland, in which her film The Pack was shortlisted for the ‘Alcoa’ prize.

In 2001 she won the coveted Fondation CCF pour la Photographie prize and her work is held in collections including the National Gallery of Australia, the Arts Council of England and the Fonds National D’Art Contemporain, France. In 2005 Helen was awarded The Conversation Gap Award commissioned by Career Innovation (Ci), and is now working on narrative-based projects with some of the world’s leading businesses.

Research Interests

Working in these varied contexts, her practice is anchored around intimate narratives – often understated or tacitly conveyed, and the visual exploration of the relationship between physical and psychological space.

• The Scene of the Crime, a practice based investigation in rational and experiential knowledge
• Salome Voegelin and Helen Bendon, presented at The Choreography of Space, the International Conference on Systems Research, Informatics and Cybernetics Baden-Baden, Germany (7 August, 2006).
• A Community Pattern Book for Housing, authored by Reem Zako, Julienne Hanson, Jess Thom and Helen Bendon, presented at Sensible Spaces: Space, Art and the Environment in Iceland (29 May 2006).
• Stuck: Moving Representations of Psychological Stasis presented at Articulating Media Practice As Research: Funding, Ratings And Research Contexts, London South Bank University (17 June 2005).
• A Place for Ambiguity: articulating practice as research, Helen Bendon Journal of Media Practice, Vol 6(3) 2005 Intellect Ltd p157-165.

Recent Exhibitions

• Being There: Detailing the City Experience, Hoopers Gallery, London
  Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea
• Touring exhibition: Fondation CCF pour la Photographie, Le Chateau d’eau Toulouse; Le Reverbere, Lyon; Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris; Galerie Athanor, Marseille
• Impressions Gallery, York
  Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris
  Galleria Kari Kenetti, Helsinki
  Centre del la Photographie, Geneva

Recent Work

Private View at Hooper’s Gallery, Clerkenwell, Screening of Skirting, Helen Bendon, 2006

Her current role as Research Artist with Vivacity2020, and AUNT-SUE is to work alongside architecture/urban design researchers at University College London, London Metropolitan University, Salford University and Sheffield University, looking creatively at issues such as housing, security, people’s perceptions of safety, and street design etc.

This project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and was recently exhibited as part of London Architecture Biennale.

Helen is currently working on a collaborative project Scene of the Crime with Salome Voegelin. See the Research Projects page.

Before Middlesex

Prior to her appointment at Middlesex, Helen taught on a range of creative programmes in the UK alongside developing her practice. With John van Aitken and Dean Summers she organised the Experimental Film Today conference at the University of Central Lancashire, where she taught Experimental and Avant Garde Film until 2004.