Dr Helena Bonett

Overview

Biography

Dr Helena Bonett is a curator, researcher and lecturer who has worked across a range of academic and museum spaces over the last two decades, including research, curatorial and learning positions at Tate, Dorich House Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts and the Midlands Arts Centre and research, lecturing and programming at Birkbeck College, Kingston University, London Metropolitan University, Cambridge School of Art, the Royal College of Art, Central Saint Martins and University of Kent.

Helena has a PhD in Curating Contemporary Art gained through an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctorate she set up between Tate and the Royal College of Art. Her research utilises participatory curatorial research methodologies as a means of unlocking cultural meaning with a particular focus on creative and museological spaces – including artists’ studios and homes that have been curated into museums – and objects – including personal objects, tools and miscellanea that tell different stories of artists’ lives and experiences. Her current research utilises participatory curatorial methods to shift traditional museological heritage framings of artists’ legacies to include those whose legacies and knowledges have traditionally been marginalised, owing principally to the intersections of race, gender and class.

Helena currently works as a researcher on the AHRC-funded project Museum Closure in the UK 2000–2025 as part of Birkbeck’s Mapping Museums Lab, has developed and teaches a new BA/Graduate Diploma/Graduate Certificate module The Politics of Display, teaches the MA/PGCert Curating and Collections Management modules, and supervises students in their dissertations at BA and MA level.

Highlights

• In 2023, Helena was awarded funding to undertake pilot research for her project Diversifying Curatorial Methods in the Studio-Museum, looking at how studio-museums can be exclusionary because of their curatorial methods and representational practices. She travelled to the US to interview curators and evaluate the studio-museums of Native American sculptor Chief Lelooska in Ariel, WA and African American sculptor Dr James W. Washington in Seattle, WA to explore alternative methods for curatorial practice. She is currently developing this research into a short film, journal article and funding application.

• Helena's new BA Art History with Curating module The Politics of Display was highlighted for its connection with industry experts and collaboration with Birkbeck's Virtual Reality and Immersive Learning team. Read more here. 

• In 2022–23, Helena was a postdoctoral researcher at Kingston University on the project Making it Home: An Aesthetic Methodological Contribution to the Study of Migrant Home-Making and Politics of Integration (MaHoMe), funded by NordForsk and the ESRC, where she worked with a cross-university, cross-disciplinary team at Lund University, Sweden and Roskilde University, Denmark and is currently writing up her research for a book publication.

• Helena edited the online research publication The Squatter Years: Recovering Dorich House Museum's Recent Past (2019–21) and co-authored a new museum guidebook and interpretation materials for Dorich House Museum, the former studio-home of the sculptor Dora Gordine.

• Helena directed the film, Trewyn Studio (2015), for the Tate St Ives Artists Programme on the former studio-home of the sculptor Barbara Hepworth in St Ives, Cornwall.

• Helena has previously delivered pioneering online research publications at Tate, The Camden Town Group in Context (2012) and The Art of the Sublime (2013), and has also curated numerous research events, programmes and exhibitions at Tate, Dorich House, the Royal Academy, Kingston University and the Royal College of Art.

Qualifications

• PhD Curating Contemporary Art (AHRC Collaborative Doctorate), Royal College of Art / Tate, 2019
• MA Modern and Contemporary Literature, Birkbeck College, University of London, 2008
• BA English, University of Birmingham, 2004
• Postgraduate Diploma Humanistic Counselling and Psychotherapy, University of Brighton, 2024

Research

Research interests

• Museums, curating and display
• Artists’ studios and homes that have been curated into museums
• Object theories
• The politics of display
• Histories and methods of curating and curatorial practice
• Other museum/gallery practices including Learning/Participation

Research overview

Helena's research utilises participatory curatorial research methodologies as a means of unlocking cultural meaning with a particular focus on creative and museological spaces – including artists’ studios and homes that have been curated into museums – and objects – including personal objects, tools and miscellanea that tell different stories of artists’ lives and experiences. Her current research utilises participatory curatorial methods to shift traditional museological heritage framings of artists’ legacies to include those whose legacies and knowledges have traditionally been marginalised, owing principally to the intersections of race, gender and class.

Helena currently works as a researcher on the AHRC-funded project Museum Closure in the UK 2000–2025 as part of Birkbeck’s Mapping Museums Lab.

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Helena has individually supervised over 200 students at MA and BA level in the successful completion of their dissertations at a variety of UK institutions.

Teaching

Helena teaches the MA/PGCert modules Curating and Collections Management principally for students studying the MA programmes in Museum Cultures and Art History as well as for students undertaking both modules as a Postgraduate Certificate. She has also developed and is teaching a new BA Art History with Curating module The Politics of Display.

Teaching modules

• The Arts: Perspectives and Possibilities (ARAR008S3)
• Collections Management (ARVC272S7)
• Curating (ARVC273S7)
• The Politics of Display (SC03014S6)