Helen Cammock
{{short description|English artist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Helen Cammock
| image = Helen Cammock-Thierry Bal-2018.jpg
| 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 ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|æ|m|ɒ|k}} {{Respell|KAM|ok}};{{Cite web |title=Interview with Max Mara Prize Winner Helen Cammock at Whitechapel Gallery |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01uaW2AGGe8 |access-date=15 July 2020}} born 1970) is a British artist. She was shortlisted for the 2019 Turner Prize{{Cite news |last=Searle |first=Adrian |date=2019-05-01 |title=Turner prize 2019: thrilling shortlist offers sci-fi sculpture and gunshot sonics |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/may/01/turner-prize-2019-thrilling-shortlist-offers-sci-fi-sculpture-and-gunshot-soundscapes |access-date=2019-05-21 |issn=0261-3077}} 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.{{Cite web |last=Holland |first=Oscar |date=2019-12-04 |title=Turner Prize won by all four nominees in appeal for 'solidarity' |url=https://www.cnn.com/style/article/turner-prize-2019-shared/index.html |access-date=2019-12-04 |website=CNN Style |language=en}} 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.{{Cite web |last=Scourti |first=Erica |date=2020-05-14 |title=Why, They Call it Idlewild |url=https://mapmagazine.co.uk/why-they-call-it-idlewild |access-date=2020-10-21 |website=MAP Magazine |language=en-GB}} She grew up in London and Somerset.{{Cite web |last=Strunck |first=Clara |date=2019-06-19 |title=How artist Helen Cammock is finally coming into her own |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/helen-cammock-is-finally-coming-into-her-own-a4171241.html |access-date=2020-10-21 |website=Evening Standard |language=en}} Her Jamaican father was a ceramicist and art teacher.{{Cite web |last=Higgins |first=Charlotte |date=2019-06-18 |title='I was terrible at drawing': Helen Cammock, the social worker who became a Turner prize nominee |url=http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jun/18/helen-cammock-turner-prize-nominee-artist-social-worker |access-date=2020-10-21 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Fite-Wassilak |first=Chris |title=A New Voice: Helen Cammock Wins the 2018 Max Mara Prize for Women |url=https://www.frieze.com/article/new-voice-helen-cammock-wins-2018-max-mara-prize-women |access-date=2020-10-21 |website=Frieze |language=en}} 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.{{Cite web |date=3 May 2019 |title=Brighton graduate nominated for £40,000 Turner Prize |url=https://www.brighton.ac.uk/about-us/news-and-events/news/2019/05-03-brighton-graduate-nominated-for-40000-turner-prize.aspx |publisher=University of Brighton}}
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.{{Cite web |last=Moioli |first=Chiara |date=2019-11-19 |title=Unfurl: Helen Cammock • |url=http://moussemagazine.it/helen-cammock-che-si-puo-fare-collezione-maramotti-reggio-emilia-2019/ |access-date=2020-10-21 |website=Mousse Magazine |language=it-IT}}
{{Blockquote|text="I am drawn to the poetry and music of lament; but also a personal, generational and historical lineage of sadness, longing and loss as a black woman. I know this lament does not belong only to my experience – it is something that is often ignored or undermined as part of world histories; and of course it is present most visibly in conflict, displacement and refugee stories."|author=Helen Cammock|title=|source=interview by Chris Fite-Wassilak in Frieze magazine, April 2018}}
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.{{Cite web |last=Rea |first=Naomi |date=27 June 2019 |title='All Art Is Political': Meet Artist Helen Cammock, Who Went From Social Worker to Turner Prize Nominee |url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/helen-cammock-turner-prize-1585648 |website=artnet news}}{{Cite web |last=Tallentire |first=Anne |date=14 January 2019 |title=Helen Cammock's Fight for Women's Visibility |url=https://www.frieze.com/article/helen-cammocks-fight-womens-visibility |access-date=2020-10-21 |website=Frieze |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Helen Cammock Wins Whitechapel's Max Mara Art Prize for Women |url=https://www.artlyst.com/news/helen-cammock-wins-max-mara-art-prize-for-women/ |access-date=2020-10-21 |website=Artlyst |language=en-GB}}
Exhibitions
- 2020 - They Call It Idlewild at Wysing Arts Centre
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".
- 2019 - Che si può fare, which premiered at the Whitechapel Gallery, https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/helen-cammock/London London, in summer 2019 and was shown at the Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy in 2019-2020.
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."{{Cite web |title=Helen Cammock: Che si può fare review {{!}} Art in London |url=https://www.timeout.com/london/art/helen-cammock-che-si-puo-fare-review |access-date=2020-10-21 |website=Time Out London |language=en}} The lives and work of women Baroque composers, Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Lucrezia Vizzana are also explored.{{Cite web |last=Luke |first=Ben |date=2019-06-26 |title=Helen Cammock review: Defiant past heroines brought vividly to life |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/helen-cammock-exhibition-review-whitechapel-gallery-a4176036.html |access-date=2020-10-21 |website=Evening Standard |language=en}} A reviewer for the London Evening Standard noted that "its abiding message is of inspiring resistance to oppressive forces".
- 2019 - The Long Note Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland{{Cite web |url=https://visualartists.ie/events/the-long-note-helen-cammock-at-irish-museum-of-modern-art-dublin |title=Archived copy |access-date=31 July 2019 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720074043/https://visualartists.ie/events/the-long-note-helen-cammock-at-irish-museum-of-modern-art-dublin/ |url-status=dead }}
- 2018 - The Long Note Void, Derry, Northern Ireland{{Cite web |title=The Long Note- Helen Cammock |url=https://www.derryvoid.com/exhibitions/helen-cammock.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190731143123/https://www.derryvoid.com/exhibitions/helen-cammock.php |archive-date=31 July 2019}}
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.{{Cite news |title=Work on Derry by artist Helen Cammock in running for Turner Prize |language=en-GB |work=belfasttelegraph |url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/theatre-arts/work-on-derry-by-artist-helen-cammock-in-running-for-turner-prize-38537701.html |access-date=2020-10-21 |issn=0307-1235}} In several sequences, Cammock combines found footage of Nina Simone with footage from the Troubles.
- 2017 - Shouting in Whispers [https://cubittartists.org.uk/2017/09/20/helen-cammock-shouting-in-whispers/ Cubitt Gallery, London] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190910121105/https://cubittartists.org.uk/2017/09/20/helen-cammock-shouting-in-whispers/ |date=10 September 2019 }}{{Cite web |date=20 September 2017 |title=Helen Cammock: exhibition, interview and performance |url=https://cubittartists.org.uk/2017/09/20/helen-cammock-shouting-in-whispers/ |website=Cubitt Artists |access-date=14 May 2019 |archive-date=10 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190910121105/https://cubittartists.org.uk/2017/09/20/helen-cammock-shouting-in-whispers/ |url-status=dead }}
Awards
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Official website|https://www.helencammock.co.uk/}}
- Fite-Wassilak, Chris (17 April 2018), [https://frieze.com/article/new-voice-helen-cammock-wins-2018-max-mara-prize-women "A New Voice: Helen Cammock Wins the 2018 Max Mara Prize for Women@], Frieze
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cammock, Helen}}
Category:Alumni of the Royal College of Art
Category:Alumni of the University of Brighton
Category:Black British artists
Category:English contemporary artists