Helena Turgel

b. 1980, Carmarthen
Lives and works in Aberteifi

Helena Turgel, still from the installation <i>Between Remembering & Forgetting</i>, 2014 (credit Miranda Evans)
Helena Turgel, still from the installation Between Remembering & Forgetting, 2014 (credit Miranda Evans)

With a practice that encompasses curation, writing, producing, and especially the places where these things meet, Helena Turgel is concerned with the interrogation of thought processes.


‘Of particular interest is memory and the systems and tools we use to augment thought processes such as memory – language, photography, recordings. Attempts to transpose an internal world into an external one; attempts to make the intangible tangible. The failure of those tools is of as much interest as the successes. Despite an innate desire to communicate, the perverse pleasure that can be taken from the intense privacy of a sensation that is slippery and tricky to grasp; something that refuses to be neatly translated into words, colour or line. But equally, the pleasure that may be drawn from the discovery of an obscure feeling shared. A recurring idea relates to the way in which the process of remembering is a process of creation and in that way, aligns closely with ideas of narrative and perception. That a mass of seemingly inconsequential fragments inform these processes, is of particular intrigue.’

Helena has been the the curator and co-ordinater for Oriel Mwldan, an art centre in West Wales since 2015. During this time she has worked with the idea of presenting contemporary art to audiences who may not ordinarily encounter it, and the possibilities presented by placing works and exhibitions in different contexts. In 2016, she worked in Sri Lanka with Alnoor Mitha, curator of the Colombo Art Biennale (CAB 2016) to work with a number of local and international artists.

The artist was in the following exhibition:
Sightseers
  • Helena Turgel, still from the installation <i>Between Remembering & Forgetting</i>, 2014 (credit Miranda Evans)