Úna Hamilton Helle
(She/her)
Address: Romsås Senter / Gamle Romsås Sykehjem, Romsås Senter 1, 0970 Oslo
Floor: 6
Room number: 611
The studio is open Saturday 26 April from 12-17
Una Hamilton Helle (NO/UK) is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and museum worker who is currently completing a practice-based Arts PhD in the Geography Department at Royal Holloway University, London. In her practice she uses sound, video, artist-made publications and participatory happenings to explore questions around ecology, place, belonging and interspecies communication. Her long-term publication and art project Becoming the Forest does this through the lens of the musical subgenre of black metal. As an artist and researcher she has also worked with Live Action Role Playing and world-building as experiments in empathy, embodiment and collaboration with human and more-than-human entities.
Installation, video, photography, sound art, publications
Úna Hamilton Helle, Tunsteinen (The Yard Stone), film (still), work in progress, 2025
Úna Hamilton Helle & Verity Birt, Beneath Clouded Hills, exhibition (sound, video, installation, lights), Bloc Projects, Sheffield, 2023
Úna Hamilton Helle, Becoming the Forest publication series, issues II-IV, 2017-2022, published by Het Bos Antwerpen
Becoming the Forest, opening ritual: a sound installation to welcome the oncoming winter, Epping Forest, 2019, photo: Alex Harvey-Brown
Documentation of Beneath Clouded Hills exhibition, 2 min
Beneath Clouded Hills video work (shown in foyer of exhibition), 14min
Studs! Hellbent for Leather, 19:34 min
Password: LeatherRebel
Planned projects and exhibitions
I am currently completing a practice-based Arts Phd in the Geography Department at Royal Holloway University, London. The PhD looks at mythic and folkloric concepts of land and place; from the grand narratives that colour our landscapes and perceptions of nationhood, to the localised notion of genius loci (spirit of place), which necessitates a more intimate and practical relationship with place, as seen, for example, in folklore and traditional customs. How do such older modes of thinking and acting bear relevance now, given our gradual loss of connectedness to nature? And how can this relationship be restored through artistic practice?
I am exploring this through two European perspectives; firstly, the imagined location of “Deep England” and its consequences for ‘Englishness’. This was firstly realised as the exhibition and research project ‘Beneath Clouded Hills’ in Sheffield, UK, last year, and secondly, through a project which explores these bigger questions through listening, dreaming, vocalisation, sound and video, asking how to communicate and relate (respectfully) with stone — an entity so different from us in materiality and temporality — through artistic methods.
This project looks to Scandinavian folklore and customs as remnants of an animist understanding of the world, which recognizes that there are many ‘persons’ in the world, only some of which are human. I wish to take this proposition seriously and ask what consequences doing so could have for our relations with the natural world. What relevance does rediscovering and reinterpreting land-based and seasonal practices have today? And how does one re-learn a forgotten tongue?
CV
Education & Courses
2022-25 Practice-based (Arts) PhD, Geography Department, Royal Holloway University, London, as part of the team THINK DEEP: Novel Creative Approaches to the Underground, led by Professor Harriet Hawkins
2018 Associate Artist, Open School East, Margate, UK, 1 year of art production and collective programming
2017 Reclaiming the Curatorial, Cubitt Gallery, London, 1 week course; curating for artist-run spaces
2013 Intro course for artist consultants, KORO (Art in Public Spaces Norway), Oslo
2008-10 MA Photography & Moving Image, Royal College of Art, London
2004-07 BA Photography, Camberwell College of Art, London
Solo Exhibitions
2026 USF Verftet (upcoming)
2023 Beneath Clouded Hills, collaboration with Verity Birt, Bloc Projects, Sheffield
2019 Becoming the Forest: a sound installation celebrating the oncoming winter, Queen Elizabeth’s Tudor Hunting Lodge, commissioned by Waltham Forest Borough of Culture 2019, London
2018 Heksenkeet, Baracca, Den Haag, The Netherlands, roaming sound installation
2016 The Return from Annwn, Legion TV, interactive online exhibition & short film
2015 Becoming the Forest, Le Bon Accueil, Rennes, France
2015 Ascension (More than a feeling), Bowling Green State University, Ohio (commissioned by The Electric Guitar in Popular Culture Conference)
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 Winter Nights, BO, Oslo (upcoming)
2021 GAMES: Untold Seats of Power, Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, Denmark – curated by UNION
2020 All Flesh is Grass, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia – collaborative exhibition with Elton Kuns, Uma Breakdown and Erik Martinson, extensive online programme, reading group and Larp
2019 4 Bed Detached Home of Metal, New Art Gallery Walsall, UK – part of the Home of Metal project,
curated by Alan Kane and commissioned by Capsule
2019 Una Hamilton Helle & Janina Totzauer, 2a Studios, Hannover, Germany
2019 Alea – an exhibition on play, chance, randomness and determinism, Celsius Projects, Malmö
2018 Gut Feelings, Open School East, Margate, UK
2018 Lair of the Neo-Diggers, LIMBO, Margate, UK
2014 Videorover 9: Archive, NURTUREart, New York, USA
Film Screenings
2022 Conjuring Creativity: Navigating the Anthropocene, conference on art & esotericism, Fylkingen, Stockholm
2020 Tangled Roots: The Origins of Black Metal, a Becoming the Forest event; curated “film mix tape” & panel discussion, London Short Film Festival, Regent St Cinema
2019 Not really now not any more, folk horror & moving image, curated by Erik Martinson, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo
2016 Scarborough Fair, art films on music, curated by Gareth Bell-Jones, Scarborough Open Air Theatre
2016 Space Party! Premiere of The Return from Annwn, w. bands & zine launch, New River Studios, London
2012-4 Black Thorns in the Black Box, travelling screening programme curated by Amelia Ishmael and Bryan Wendorf, FOKL Center, Kansas City; The Nightingale, Chicago; Spectacle Theatre, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Grimposium (academic conference), Concordia University, Montreal
Happenings
2023 Beneath Clouded Hills: A Day of Events, talks, music, somatic exercises & film screenings, Sheffield
2023 Sylvan (re)searchers: an audio journey, radio takeover at Het Bos, streamed live on We Are Various
2019 Movement/Possession #03: The Forest, reading performance, SET Dalston Lane, London
2018 An interactive game with Open School East, one-day installation, Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects, London
2017 Becoming the Forest II UK launch, talk by geographer Harriet Hawkins, music by Mork, The Infernal Sea & Ashtoreth, organised with artist Flora Parrott & black metal publishers Cult Never Dies, Nambucca, London
2017 Becoming the Forest II Belgium launch, w. art installations & music by Ashtoreth, Het Bos Antwerpen
2017 Becoming the Forest II Norway launch, w. Sebastian Rusten & Katakomben Recs, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo
2012 The Wire Salon: Looking Black: The Visual Aesthetics of Black Metal, Café Oto, London, exhibit
Workshops & Talks
2023 Beneath Clouded Hills: a journey into Deep England, American Folklore Society Conference, Portland, Oregon
2023 Deep England: an artist’s approach, Royal Holloway Geography Dept, London
2023 Visiting artist presentation, Praksis, Oslo – for the residency artists of R24: Experiments in Touch
2023 Beneath Clouded Hills: A more-than-human approach to Deep England, session and talk, American Association of Geographers, Denver, Colorado
2022 Monica Sjöö: The time is NOW and it is overdue!, key note talk, Beaconsfield Gallery, London
2021 The Unquiet Veil: a seminar on Folk Magick, Resistance and Paranormal Ecologies of the Arts, artist presentation and oracular workshop, Stockholm University of the Arts
2020 Harsh Light: Englishness and Mysticism – a Conversation between Verity Birt, Dr Edwin Coomesaru & Una Hamilton Helle, Bloc Projects webinar
2019 Hal Silver: Collective Strategies, three-part workshop & public lecture for recent graduates, organised by Pic London & London College of Communication
2018 Gameplay; Three Game Design Workshops, organiser, Open School East, Margate
2018 Earthly Delights; three workshops on ‘nature’, organiser, The Garden Gate Project & OSE Margate
2018 Expand and Contract: Navigating Undergrounds, workshop, Royal Holloway Geography Dept, London
2017 In Conversation between Art and Larp – A panel discussion, organised by Marije Baalman and Nina Runa Essendrop, Knutepunkt, Oslo, Norway
2014 Hal Silver: Day & Night: a game-themed workshop, Photographer’s Gallery & pop up location, London
Art Larps (Live Action Role Play)
2021 After Progress: Playing with Deep Time, online LARP game, collaboration w. Depts of Environmental Humanities & Geosciences, University of Oslo
2020 A Corpse at Findhorn: the Symbiotic Garden, an online Larp commissioned by Kim?, Riga
2018 Katabasis – a LARP about descents and origin myths, Grenselandet, Oslo; [Space] Studios, London; The Smoke LARP Festival, London
2017 In Conversation between Art and Larp – a panel discussion, Knutepunkt LARP Festival, Oslo, Norway
2016-17 The Virtual Restoration Project: A Larp about remaking history, The Smoke International LARP festival, London; Knutepunkt, Oslo; as part of the Antiuniversity Now! Programme, Open School East, London
Publications & Sound Releases – as Creator
2023-4 Beneath Clouded Hills three-part podcast, released as part of Legion Projects’ Ploughing Old Patterns, Raising New Ground
2022 Becoming the Forest IV, 130p. artist publication, published by Het Bos Antwerpen, (artist, editor)
2022 Monica Sjöö: artist, activist, writer, mother, warrior, published by Legion Projects (editor, writer)
2019 Becoming the Forest III, 150p. artist publication, published by Het Bos Antwerpen, (artist, editor)
2017 Becoming the Forest II, 130p. artist publication, published by Het Bos Antwerpen, (artist, editor)
2016 Nekrosus, flexidisc (soft vinyl formed as postcards), Last Post Recordings, France (recording artist; spoken word), edition of 250
2015 Becoming the Forest exhibition zine I, published by Le Bon Accueil, Rennes (artist, editor)
Publications – as Contributor
2016 A guide to the Guardians of Annwn, in Infundibulum: stories of non-ordinary reality by women, artist publication published by Microcosmic Hypermarket
2016 Rooilijn: Becoming the Forest, guest artist/dedicated insert, published by Het Bos, Antwerp
2015 The Promise of Something and Nothing, published by Tiny Splendor, Los Angeles
2012 Black Metal: Beyond the Darkness, published by Black Dog Publishing, London (as photographer, visual direction)
Exhibitions & Events – as Curator
2023 Ploughing Old Patterns, Raising New Ground, audio commission series on “folk cultures”, released as podcasts, Legion Projects
2021 Darkness Retreat, online exhibition by Flora Parrott, Legion Projects
2018-19 Waking the Witch, a Legion Projects Touring Exhibition: Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown; 20-21 Visual Arts, Scunthorpe; Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury; Bonington Gallery, Nottingham. Art works and commissions by 16 artists, including historical loans from the Museum of Witchcraft, Feminist Archive South and Glastonbury Goddess Temple.
2016 Turner Contemporary and the British Museum Commission: Hannah Lees, Turner Contemporary, Margate: Initiated through the British Museum National Programmes project; a contemporary response to a loan of Roman Samian ware from local shipwreck ‘Pudding Pan’.
2008-2011 Curator with collective Five Storey Projects, organised six group exhibitions, multiple performances and two publications, showcasing the work of over 50 artists, various locations, London
Residencies
2022 Beneath Clouded Hills, w. Verity Birt at Creswell Crags caves, facilitated by Bloc Projects
2019 Shadows Over Croydon, residency with Hamish McPherson in Whitgift Shopping Centre, organised by Croydon Art Store
2019 Temporary Utopian Zone, PLATZprojekt, Hannover, funded by Hannover Junge Kultur
2016 Larp Writers Summer School (July) & Larporatory (Nov), Vilnius
2011 Escalator Retreat 10, Wysing Arts Centre, UK
Grants & Stipends
2023 OCA International Support for Beneath Clouded Hills exhibition
2023 Arts Council England: Project support for Beneath Clouded Hills exhibition
2023 Norske Billedkunstneres Vederlagsfond
2022 Arts Council England: Project support for Beneath Clouded Hills residency
2021 Arts Council England: Project support for Ploughing Old Patterns, Raising New Ground audio commissions (as curator)
2021 Norske Billedkunstneres Vederlagsfond
2021 Norsk Kulturråd: Support for Artist Publications
2020 Norske Billedkunstneres Vederlagsfond
2018 Norske Billedkunstneres Vederlagsfond
2018 Arts Council England: Project support for Waking the Witch touring exhibition (as curator)
2018 Norsk Kulturråd: Support for Artist Publications
2017 Norsk Kulturråd: Support for Artist Publications
2009-10 Royal College of Art Tuition Fee Grant
2009 Major og Advokat Eivind Eckbos Legat