Helen Billinghurst
Helen Billinghurst’s practice always begins with walking. By placing her body into zones of industrial fallout, ecological crisis, and social amnesia, Helen draws out the ‘voices’ of non-human others and of lively materials. She unpicks and retells folk/place story through painting, installation, performance (ritual) and writing.
Helen’s doctoral exhibition English Diagrams (2019) deployed a creaturely diagrammatics to tease out the stories, codes, patterns, paths, folds and fields of the land. Her recent paintings, Fabulous Bestiary, are part of this ongoing, wider, body of work. Constructed from found materials (including a scaffold plank and a discarded chair seat) Fabulous Bestiary riffs around traditions of high street shop and public house sign-painting and heraldry.
Helen has presented her work at conferences nationally and internationally and contributed articles for Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism (Taylor and Francis, 2023), Performance Research (Routledge, 2023), Making Routes, Journeys in Performance 2010-2020 (Triarchy, 2021) and World Futures (Sage, 2020). She was a co-organiser editor of the Walking’s New Movement Conference (University of Plymouth, 2019) co-editor of Walking Bodies (2020. Helen’s poetry and fiction has been published by Triarchy Press (She is the Sea 2019, The Pattern 2020) and Peakrill Press (Crab & Bee’s Matter of Britain, 2025).
Helen often collaborates with other artists; she was co-director of the Plymouth Culture funded all-woman arts group Sprite Arts (2022-2024) and is currently working with photographer Jo Dorothea-Smith on Garden Leave, an ongoing project about precarity and redundancy in UK arts education. Helen’s ongoing work with mythogeographer and writer Phil Smith (as Crab & Bee) reflects their shared interests in alternative cultures, ecology, folklore and walking. Crab & Bee have performed at a variety of venues, from the Royal Conservatoire, Scotland to the Isles of Scilly. In 2025 they toured twelve UK venues, celebrating their re-telling of “old stories’ in Crab & Bee’s Matter of Britain (Peakrill Press,2025) with readings, performance and paintings. Their recent co-authored book Diagrammatical Performances: Making Theatre with More-Than-Human Others is due to be published by Routledge in 2026.
Contact Information
website: https://crab-bee.tumblr.com/
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctorhelenbeee/
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helen.bee.98
Professional practice & experience
Exhibitions
2025 Yarn. Textile text work commissioned for OutLANDish, a group exhibition of women artists exploring notions of landscape. Curated by Rebekah Dean.
Fabulous Bestiary. Exhibition at Devon and Exeter Institute Library. Curated alongside selected works from the DEI collection by Emma Dunn for Art Week Exeter.
Fabulous Bestiary. Curated 37 at Looe St Gallery, Plymouth alongside selected works from the English Diagrams with poetry, story readings and sea shanties.
2024 PILOT Fine Art staff show, PS1 Gallery.
Cloud 9. Paintings selected for Summer Open, Studio Kind, Barnstable.
2023 Deep Time & Future Pasts in Gully Cave. Making Routes film collaboration, Scottish Society of Artists, exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy.
2022 Sheepdrip. Commissioned textile installation for exhibition, The Sky is Moving Sideways, curated by Rebekah Dean, Stephens House and Gardens, London. Six-week artist residency and exhibition, Sprite Arts Test Space, Plymouth.
Fine Art staff group show. With Steven Paige, Antigoni Pasidi, Sarah King, Paul Hillon, Louise Fago-Ruskin and Tom Milnes. Cornwall St, Plymouth.
2020 Walking Diagrams. Solo exhibition at ‘Walking’s New Movement’ conference, Roland Lewinsky Building, University of Plymouth.
2019 Plymouth Labyrinth. ACE funded arts project, RAAY, Plymouth.
2018 English Diagrams. Solo exhibition of doctoral artistic research, Royal William Yard, Plymouth.
2017 Embodied Cartographies. Curated by Fay Stephens, Walcott Chapel, Bath.
Pathways. Group show, Harbour House, Kingsbridge.
2016 Crossing England. Solo exhibition Arial Centre, Totnes.
2015 Interpretation and Personal Language. Group show with Connor McIntyre, Kevin Tole, Matt Thomas, Artmill, Plymouth.
Publications & Research Papers
2026 (Forthcoming) Diagrammatical Performances: Making Theatre with More-Than-Human Others. Handbook. Routledge.
2025 Crab & Bee’s Matter of Britain. Book of eco-stories. Commissioned by Peakrill Press.
2023 Placestory/storyplace: a gristly category for a new poetics of space. Journal chapter. Green Letters: studies in ecocriticism, Special Issue: New Poetics of Space. Taylor & Francis.
Giants Grave, Chalk Queens and Reality Checkpoint. Article. Undefined Boundary, Volume 2, Issue 1. Temporal Boundary Press.
Web walking, the landscape pattern, and place-story diagrams in performance. Journal article. Issue 27.7, ‘On diagrams and the diagrammatic’, Performance Research Journal. Routledge.
2022 WolfFlow. Research paper presentation with Dr Laura Denning for Critical Animal and Plant Studies, Second International Environmental Humanities Conference, Cappadocia University, Turkey.
Crab & Bee’s Provisional Demonology of Old Quarries and Suburban Woods. Co-written article. Undefined Boundary, Volume 1, Issue 1. Temporal Boundary Press.
WolfFlow, performance presentation with Dr Laura Denning, Sentient Performativities Conference, Art.Earth, Dartington.
Walking Recipe commissioned walking score for The Walkbook, Walk/Create.
2021 Two Slow Worms. Artworks for becomingFERAL, an Objet-A Creative Studio publication, Glasgow.
Sharing the Walk. Research paper presented to 4th World Congress of Psychography, Huddersfield.
Change and repair: trixxy walking and recovery in a Time of Virus. Book chapter, photographs, maps & drawings for Making Routes: journeys in performance 2010-2020, Triarchy Press.
2020 She is the Sea: poems and essays. With Phil Smith, Triarchy Press.
Dr Skulk & Dr Guiser's Endgame. Arts research pamphlet, with Phil Smith, funded by University of Plymouth.
The Pattern, a landscape fictioning. Book, co-authored with Phil Smith for Triarchy Press.
Walking Bodies. Book of selected papers & provocations from Walking’s New Movements Conference, University of Plymouth (2019). Co-edited with Claire Hind & Phil Smith.
Convivial acts for an ecosensual labyrinth. Peer-reviewed chapter for Queer Convivialist Perspectives for Sustainable Futures, World Futures, Taylor & Francis, edited by Sacha Kagan.
2019 Ways of Making: creating artworks in the studio in response to experiential walking. PhD thesis, University of Plymouth.
Red Hunting in Soho. Exhibition catalogue article and presentation for Dear Christine, Vane Gallery, Newcastle, curated by Fionn Wilson.
Working with flow: tracing the currents of Plymouth’s unsung waterways through artistic collaboration. Research paper, Flows of Entanglement Symposium, University of Plymouth.
Mining the myths and stories in a Whovian landscape. Co-presented paper Royal Geographical Society Annual International Conference, London.
Web Walking. Research Paper, Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography, Huddersfield.
2017 A bestiary for the Anthropocene. Research paper for ASLEUKI/Land2 Cross, Multi, Inter, Trans conference, Sheffield. (ASLE ULKI Bursary award for ‘Best Abstract’)
Crossing the Gap: examining the boundary between art practice and everyday life, during illness, bereavement and immobility. Research paper for PEP research seminar, Plymouth University.
2016 Pecha Kucha research presentation, Walking Women Weekend of Events, Somerset House, London.
Fluxes within the studio space: exploring the rhythms and cycles of art-making and domesticity. PEP research seminar, Plymouth University.
Paths to painting: how to navigate unstable signs, shifting meanings, and fluid landscapes. Land2 ‘Traffic’ symposium, PCA, Plymouth.
Residencies, Commissions, Awards, Events
2025 Crab & Bee’s Matter of Britain book tour. UK travelling tour of readings, performance and paintings with: Loiterers Resistance Movement (Manchester), Airy Fairy (Sheffield), Common Wealth Theatre (Cardiff), WalkSpace (Birmingham), Devon and Exeter Institution Library, Exeter University (Exeter), The Society for New Mythology & Frontier Ontology (Kilnsey), Whitby Krampus Run, Whitby Bookshop (Whitby), The Folklore Centre (Todmorden), Folk Preservation Society (Teignmouth), 37 Looe St Gallery and Fruit Locker (Plymouth).
2024 Patterns, Diagrams and Place-Stories. Performance presentation for Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography, Canterbury.
Signs & Stories and Midsummer Meander, performance walks for Stoke Village Hub, Plymouth.
2023 Séance for Stonehouse. One week Crab & Bee residency and public performance at RAAY, Stonehouse, Plymouth, funded by University of Plymouth.
2022 Sprite Arts, Plymouth Culture Meanwhile Use award, Plymouth Culture. Co-director and producer for city centre Arts Test Space, August – December 2022.
2021 Webs, Nets & Carrier Bags. Performance for Making Routes book launch, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow.
Around the Hills. Performance for Move into Life group performance weekend, West Hay Farm, Stonebarrow, Dorset, September 2021.
Place, Story & Making Connections. Three-day walking workshopping event for Commonwealth Theatre, Cardiff.
Crab & Bee Boatburn Finale. Poetry reading and site-specific performance, Teats Hill, Plymouth.
Blockhouse 360: Plymouth Legends. Art zine for Blockhouse 360 Impact Project funded by University of Plymouth.
Open House. Film short for Open: Short Film Screening, as part of the Cine Sisters South West Creative Hub Takeover, Exeter Phoenix.
10 Scores for a Wild City scores. Films & online workshop for live art festival Unfix 2021.
Crab & Bee Wassail. Filmed performance commission for Barbican Theatre, Plymouth.
2020 Crab & Bee’s Endgame. Commissioned films for State of Emergency micro-commission, Box, Plymouth.
Social Making in Forgotten Corners. Art consultant, HPA seed-funding community discussion, funded by University of Plymouth.
Coxside Smoke Signal. With Take A Part, funded by Being Human Festival of Humanities and University of Plymouth.
2019 Co-organiser of Walking’s New Movements conference, University of Plymouth.
Plymouth Labyrinth, Arts Crab & Bee multi-modal art project, funded by Take A Part, Arts Council England & University of Plymouth.
Web Walking research grant from Plymouth University.
Myths at Teats Hill Crab & Bee two-week residency for Take A Part Plymouth.
The Mothership. One week Crab & Bee R&D residency, Dorset.
Commissioned walks for: Celebrating Island Heritage Symposium, Isles of Scilly; Commonwealth Theatre, Cardiff; NHS psychiatrists, Exeter; Leo Camp, Wolsey Bridge Farm, Diss.
2018 Crab & Bee scrying performance. Tactile BOSCH, Jarman Jubilee night, Cardiff.
2017 Performing Wild Geographies. Funded by Royal Holloway University London and Oxford University. Knepp Castle Estate, Sussex.
2013 Six-month artist’s residency at High Cross House, Dartington.
Qualifications
2019 PhD. Ways of making: creating artworks in the studio in response to experiential walking. School of Humanities and Performing Arts, University of Plymouth.
2017 PDAP. Independent Teaching & Learning. University of Plymouth (HEA application).
2013 BA Hons 1:1. Fine Art. Plymouth College of Art.
1994 British Institute of Professional Photographers PQE. Distinction. Video Production. Plymouth College of Art and Design.
Teaching & Lecturing
2022 – 2024 Lecturer, MA & BA Fine Art, Arts University Plymouth.
2019 – 2023 Alumni Associate Fellow, University of Plymouth (see ‘Residencies, commissions, awards & events’ for research projects).
2019 – 2020 Lecturer, MA School of Arts & Media, and BA Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, Plymouth College of Art.
2012 – 2019 Associate lecturer, Plymouth College of Art.
2017 Associate Lecturer in Philosophy of Performance Training, MA Performance Studies, University of Plymouth.
2013 – 2019 Visiting Lecturer, King Edward VI Community College, Totnes.