Helen Cammock

Helen Cammock ( ; born 1970) is a British artist. She was shortlisted for the 2019 Turner Prize 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. 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. She grew up in London and Somerset. Her Jamaican father was a ceramicist and art teacher. Cammock's film Character Building deals with the acts of racism that she, her sister, and mother faced for being a mixed-race family.

Her 2025 video work Persistence was displayed at the National Portrait Gallery from late 2025 until June 2026. It was removed from display due to controversy regarding the role of Winston Churchill in the Bengal famine of 1943.

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?". 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." The lives and work of women Baroque composers, Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Lucrezia Vizzana are also explored. A reviewer for the London Evening Standard noted that "its abiding message is of inspiring resistance to oppressive forces". 2018: The Long Note – Void, Derry, Northern Ireland 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. In several sequences, Cammock combines found footage of Nina Simone with footage from the Troubles.

Awards 2018 – Max Mara Art Prize for Women 2019 – Turner Prize