Helen Lee was born and raised in Chicago to immigrant parents from South Korea. She received her BA in Dance & Theatre from University of Hawaii. Many of her curiosities lean towards the quiet, the tactile, sensations and internal shifts that happen within us and around us. She is interested in how this awareness can bring us closer to truth and nature. Before her grad studies, Helen explored various ways to enhance and take away the senses. SAIC’s MFA program has given her an opportunity to investigate ancestral history, identity, memory, shame, meanings of food and home by taking a closer look at her mother and her isolation and her father and his relationship to anger and animals. To attempt to tell this story she has weaved and layered various mediums together such as performance, storytelling, 16mm film, home videos, animation, taxidermy, installation and social practice.
The Crying Closet, 2018, Performance
Soo Ja, 2018, Performance
MomMe, 2017, Animation
Because you're Korean, 2017, Performance
The Dinner Party, 2018, Mixed (empress cicada, silverware, sod, paper, ink, menstrual blood)
