Seminar Series 10: Lecture 5 - Helen Marriage
The power of cultural disruption
Helen Marriage is director of Artichoke, the renowned creative company that has startled its audience with its innovative approach to working in public space.
In this lecture, Helen talked about the company’s work over the past eight years and discussed the ways in which the temporary transformation of the public domain can bring about lasting change in the way in which cities operate. Evidence drawn from Artichoke’s past projects demonstrated how artists, public authorities, participants and spectators began to be able to re-imagine their surroundings and relationship to each other through these life-affirming experiences.
About the speaker
Helen Marriage, Director, Artichoke
Helen Marriage is a co-director of the UK creative company Artichoke, founded with Nicky Webb in 2005. Artichoke is one of the UK’s leading independent arts companies, working to transform landscapes and expectations through its unique way of realising the ambitions of artists and the dreams of the public.
Over recent years Artichoke has produced some of the UK’s most striking large-scale art events ranging from Royal de Luxe’s The Sultan’s Elephant , through Antony Gormley’s Fourth Plinth project One & Other, to Peace Camp by international theatre director Deborah Warner and actor Fiona Shaw.
Artichoke’s interests lie at the conjunction of art, politics, communication and transformation. By creating a platform for an artist’s most impossible ideas and inserting their work into the everyday life of society, Artichoke achieves high impact through massive unexpected disruption to daily life. This work has taken the company into an examination of the nature of control over the public domain and the ways in which our cities and landscapes can be re-imagined. It is the company’s belief that while their transformation of the landscape is ephemeral, the transformation of the individual is permanent.
Helen Marriage seminar
Back to