Helen Cammock Explained

Helen Cammock
Birth Date:1970
Birth Place:England
Nationality:British
Field:Film, Image, Photography, Writing, Poetry, Spoken Word, Song, Performance, Printmaking and Installation
Training:Royal College of Arts (MA, 2011),
University of Brighton (BA Hons, 2008)
Awards:Max Mara Art Prize for Women, 2018
Turner Prize, 2019

Helen Cammock (;[1] born 1970) is a British artist. She was shortlisted for the 2019 Turner Prize[2] and was awarded the prize along with the other three nominees (Tai Shani, Oscar Murillo and Lawrence Abu Hamdan). For the first time ever, they asked the jury to award the prize to all four artists and their request was granted.[3] 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.[4] She grew up in London and Somerset.[5] Her Jamaican father was a ceramicist and art teacher.[6] [7] 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, followed by study at the University of Brighton.[8]

Following the award of the Max Mara Art Prize in 2018, Cammock travelled across Italy to Florence, Rome, Palermo, Bologna, Venice and Reggio Emilia. She filmed a performance on Beatrice Cenci'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, an important theme in much of Cammock's work.[9]

Cammock's work often seeks to connect women's stories and voices across time, with common themes of oppression, feminist resistance, and solidarity, and exploring intersections of gender and race, the collective and the individual.[10] [11] [12]

Exhibitions

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 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".

At the Whitechapel, "The main work is a three-channel film featuring interviews with activists, musicians, historians and artists from Cammock's time in Italy."[14] The lives and work of women Baroque composers, Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Lucrezia Vizzana are also explored.[15] A reviewer for the London Evening Standard noted that "its abiding message is of inspiring resistance to oppressive forces".

The Long Note was nominated for the Turner Prize, and shown at Turner Contemporary 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.[17] In several sequences, Cammock combines found footage of Nina Simone with footage from the Troubles.

Awards

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Interview with Max Mara Prize Winner Helen Cammock at Whitechapel Gallery . 15 July 2020.
  2. News: Searle . Adrian . 2019-05-01 . Turner prize 2019: thrilling shortlist offers sci-fi sculpture and gunshot sonics . en-GB . The Guardian . 2019-05-21 . 0261-3077.
  3. Web site: Holland . Oscar . 2019-12-04 . Turner Prize won by all four nominees in appeal for 'solidarity' . 2019-12-04 . CNN Style . en.
  4. Web site: Scourti . Erica . 2020-05-14 . Why, They Call it Idlewild . 2020-10-21 . MAP Magazine . en-GB.
  5. Web site: Strunck . Clara . 2019-06-19 . How artist Helen Cammock is finally coming into her own . 2020-10-21 . Evening Standard . en.
  6. Web site: Higgins . Charlotte . 2019-06-18 . 'I was terrible at drawing': Helen Cammock, the social worker who became a Turner prize nominee . 2020-10-21 . The Guardian . en.
  7. Web site: Fite-Wassilak . Chris . A New Voice: Helen Cammock Wins the 2018 Max Mara Prize for Women . 2020-10-21 . Frieze . en.
  8. Web site: 3 May 2019 . Brighton graduate nominated for £40,000 Turner Prize . University of Brighton.
  9. Web site: Moioli . Chiara . 2019-11-19 . Unfurl: Helen Cammock • . 2020-10-21 . Mousse Magazine . it-IT.
  10. Web site: Rea . Naomi . 27 June 2019 . 'All Art Is Political': Meet Artist Helen Cammock, Who Went From Social Worker to Turner Prize Nominee . artnet news.
  11. Web site: Tallentire . Anne . 14 January 2019 . Helen Cammock's Fight for Women's Visibility . 2020-10-21 . Frieze . en.
  12. Web site: Helen Cammock Wins Whitechapel's Max Mara Art Prize for Women . 2020-10-21 . Artlyst . en-GB.
  13. https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/helen-cammock/London
  14. Web site: Helen Cammock: Che si può fare review Art in London . 2020-10-21 . Time Out London . en.
  15. Web site: Luke . Ben . 2019-06-26 . Helen Cammock review: Defiant past heroines brought vividly to life . 2020-10-21 . Evening Standard . en.
  16. Web site: Archived copy . 31 July 2019 . 20 July 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230720074043/https://visualartists.ie/events/the-long-note-helen-cammock-at-irish-museum-of-modern-art-dublin/ . dead .
  17. News: Work on Derry by artist Helen Cammock in running for Turner Prize . en-GB . belfasttelegraph . 2020-10-21 . 0307-1235.
  18. Web site: 20 September 2017 . Helen Cammock: exhibition, interview and performance . Cubitt Artists . 14 May 2019 . 10 September 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190910121105/https://cubittartists.org.uk/2017/09/20/helen-cammock-shouting-in-whispers/ . dead .
  19. Web site: Helen Cammock wins the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in collaboration with Whitechapel Gallery . Whitechapel Gallery . en.