Helen is Director of Artichoke, a creative company in the UK. Their presentation of Royal de Luxe’s The Sultan’s Elephant (2006) in London reinvented the notion of the city’s landscape. 

Since then Artichoke has produced a biennial Lumiere series in Durham from 2009 – 2023 with additional events in Derry and London; Peace Camp (2012); Temple in Derry (2015); Great Fire 350 (2016); PROCESSIONS (2018). In 2019 she was made Creative Director of Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture. 

Helen’s interests centre on art, civic disruption, public engagement and the transformation of daily life. In 2012 she was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard and made an MBE for Services to the Arts in 2016. She is a Fellow of Guildhall School since 2018. She was an Area Council member for ACE (London) until February 2022.