Helen Pheby

Helen Pheby
Occupation	Curator
Nationality	British

Helen Pheby is an international curator with the role of Head of Curatorial Programme at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Dr Pheby was Vice Chair of the Civic art gallery and theatre in Barnsley; is the Chair of UP Projects, London; curatorial advisor to ArtRole in Iraqi Kurdistan and NIROX in South Africa. She is also a Cultural Fellow of York St John University and was an advisor to the Arts Council Collection Acquisition Committee in 2016-17. Dr Pheby is regularly invited to undertake international lectures and tours including the Contemporary Austin in January 2017 and as the guest of Creative India in 2013. Helen has collaborated with Selfridges since 2018 to curate the Duke Street entrance to their flagship London store.

Career

Dr Pheby's research and practice is rooted in the belief that creativity is central to humanity, as well as a motivation to understand the potential of art and its institutions in the world. Her PhD thesis considered controversial public sculpture as a means to better understand art’s place in a healthy, antagonistic, democracy and she is a recognised authority on art beyond the institution.

To this end, she has worked with international partners to co-curate several offsite projects including the Kyiv Sculpture Project (2012), the first time that contemporary sculpture was shared in the public realm in Ukraine. In 2016 she curated 'A Place in Time' at the NIROX sculpture foundation in the UNESCO Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, pioneering the consideration of contemporary making and appreciation alongside prehistoric artefacts.

Dr. Pheby's groundbreaking 2016 exhibition 'Beyond Boundaries: Art by Email' in collaboration with ArtRole in Kurdistan-Iraq harnessed the potential of digital communications to give a platform to artists in the Middle East and North Africa whose political and other circumstances made it very difficult for them to travel to the UK.