Poster
Unfolding Helen Chadwick: Becoming the Body of Thought
This is an exhibition focused on British Artist Helen Chadwick - yet it is not about her.
It is about becoming — how a body of thought perpetually forms, moves, and reforms.
In April 2025, while working in the Special Collections reading room at Goldsmiths Library, I noticed a trolley bristling with books on Helen Chadwick — heavy with bookmarks. An independent researcher — visual artist Miriam Rafael Sampaio— approached me and explained she was working with these materials. Casually, she opened a book and showed me images of Piss Flowers.
“She’s making artwork with piss,” Miriam said.
That moment struck me — not because of shock, but because of the affect I felt in the composition of the encounter: a late artist scattered across books and images, a living artist in active dialogue with her, and myself — a passing witness, unknowingly folded into the conversation.
Inspired by the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, I came to realise:
It was never only about Helen Chadwick.
It was about a body of thought — fluid, relational, alive — unfolding across artworks, philosophical theories, visual language, and corporeal expressions. This body of thought is becoming — before, through, and beyond Helen’s life.
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Curator :Vincent Lian
This wall collage provides a brief overview of the body of thought unfolded through the work and life of Helen Chadwick. The displayed visual materials have been drawn from a mix of archives, books, and digital photographs, and are arranged without a central focus or linear system.
Sections
Rhizome
This section explores the rhizomatic architecture of Helen’s mental and material life — her lifestyle, reading imprints and personal collections. Each element — organic or inorganic — is not background but part of a web of relations that nourished and shaped her artistic thought. Certain insights can be gained from her interviews, documentaries, previous exhibition materials and essays that reflect Helen Chadwick.
The trolley of materials was donated by David Notarius on behalf of the estate of Helen Chadwick. The bookmarks inside were placed by visual artist Miriam Rafael Sampaio, marking pages that relate to Chadwick or contain her notes and highlights. The videocassette player is provided to display A Tribute to Helen Chadwick ( produced by BBC2 in 1996).
Assemblage(s)
Helen’s works, both as a whole and in their singularities, are seen here as assemblages — dynamic constellations of matter, image, and concept. These assemblages open up multiple readings and lines of connection, allowing us to trace the folds of her thought both horizontally (across themes) and vertically (through intensities).
The archives and books displayed in this exhibition are mainly related to Helen’s artworks Ego Geometria Sum, Of Mutability, Meat Abstract, and Piss Flowers.
( Partial pages from pamphlet Piss Flowers, WAL/1/1/3/CHAD_He in SCA)
Transversality
This section reveals a dynamic interplay of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, as Helen’s thought-body continually enters new assemblages. The living forces within this thought have moved transversally across disciplines — art, literature, photography, architecture, and beyond. These lines of influence resist fixed paths. They move, mutate, and multiply.
(Left 1) Dissertation – Available for reference in the Special Collections & Archive Reading Room.
(Left 2) Anya Gallaccio —Anya Gallaccio is a British artist. She has credited Helen Chadwick’s daring use of unconventional, bodily materials as a direct influence, inspiring her to make visible the mutability of life in her own work.
(Left 3 bottom) ABC – Damien Hirst was a student of Helen Chadwick when she worked as a visiting lecturer at Goldsmiths. Related books on Damien Hirst can be found in the Goldsmiths Library.
(Left 3 top) Judgement of Pans – Slide by Flick Allen
‘My generation (b.1950s) had been brought up with Picasso as all-dominant; when I’d been struggling to find a form of feminist articulation that suited me, I saw Helen Chadwick’s Ego Geometria Sum and felt she’d found hers. I was exhilarated by it - at last something I could visually, sensually and intellectually identify with, although I knew the form her work took was quite different from mine. I wanted to see what would happen if we all changed roles. I asked Helen if I could use her image, and she gave, rather than lent, me the negative. This work was the result. ‘
— Flick Allen
(Left 4 )Forms of enchantment: writings on art & artists — Marina Warner is a celebrated English writer, mythographer, art critic, and historian. She wrote a pivotal catalogue essay on Helen Chadwick’s installation The Oval Court.
Here are the engagements from the exhibition visitors:
The items displayed in the exhibition are collected/recreated from Goldsmiths library collections, including Special Collections& Archives and main library collection. Below is the full list of materials displayed:
Books:
ABC / Damien Hirst., 709.2 Hi (School Practice section)
Anya Gallaccio, Q 709.2 Ga
Architecture, space, painting, 701 ARC
Body art / performing the subject, 709.04074 JON
Cathy de Monchaux , Q 709.04 De
De light, 709.2 Ch
Elective affinities, 709.049 TAC
Effluvia, 709.2 Ch
Figures,709.4109048 FIG
Forms of enchantment : writings on art & artists / Marina Warner. 709 WAR
Gender trouble : feminism and the subversion of identity / Judith Butler 305.42 BUT
Gavin Turk, Q 709.2 Tu.
Georges Bataille / Michael Richardson. 701 BAT
Helen Chadwick : wreaths to pleasure, 709.2 Ch
Helen Chadwick, Constructing Identities Between Art and Architecture, WAL 709.2 CHA
Jana Sterbak : states of being = corps à corps, 709.2 St
Judy Chicago : and Louise Bourgeois, Hel, Q709.2 Ch
Of Mutability, WAL 709.2 CHA
Powers of horror : an essay on abjection, 843.99 Ce/KRI
Requiem = Rekviiem, 709.2 Hi
Secret Victorians : contemporary artists, 709.049 SEC
Something the matter : Helen Chadwick, 709.4109049 SOM
Stilled lives : Helen Chadwick, 709.04 Ch
The sacred and the feminine : imagination and sexual difference, 704.042 SAC
The sexuality of Christ in Renaissance art and in modern oblivion, 704.9485 STE
The sleepwalkers : a history of man's changing vision of the Universe, 520.9 KOE
The Turner prize 1987, The Turner prize 1987
The world of Frida Kahlo, KAH in Women's Art Library
Undercover surrealism : Georges Bataille and Documents, Q709.051 ADE in mail collection
What can a woman do with a camera? : photography for women, 779.082 WHA in main collection
Archives:
'A life in the day of Helen Chadwick' Interview Press-cutting, WAL/2/1/CHAD in SCA
Enfleshings, Postcard, WAL/2/1/CHAD in SCA
Helen Chadwick Interview Transcript, WAL/2/1/CHAD in SCA
Helen Chadwick file box, WAL/2/1/CHAD
Helen Chadwick slides, WAL 1/1/3/CHAD_HE
In Heaven: Helen Chadwick and her Unnatural Selection ( dissertation by Terri Chilton), WAL/8/CHIL
Judgement of pans DETAIL, slide, Flick Allen Slide Archive Deposited 2021 9/19
'My Personal Museum' Exhibition Guide, WAL/2/1/CHAD in Goldsmiths Special Collections & Archive (SCA)
Piss Flower pamphlet, WAL/2/1/CHAD in SCA
WOMEN’S ART, NO. 52, 1993. Reference: women’s art magazine collection.
'Work of the body as a body of work' Interview? Press-cutting, WAL/2/1/CHAD in SCA
Audio-visuals:
'A tribute to Helen Chadwick' Video Cassette, WAL/7/2/122 in SCA
Audio arts magazine. Vol. 5 no. 1, Audio arts. Vol. 5 no. 1 in Audio-visual section
Hello boys, Video12470 in Audio-visual section
'Meat Abstract' Video Cassette, WAL/7/2/48
Partial Displayed Collections
A collection of books related to Helen Chadwick has been held by the Women’s Art Library at SCA.
British artist Damien Hirst was influenced by the ideas of visiting lecturer Helen Chadwick during his time as a student at Goldsmiths.
Marina Warner, a historian, mythographer, and art critic, has had a significant engagement with Helen Chadwick’s work.
Judgement of Pans – Slide by Flick Allen
‘My generation (b.1950s) had been brought up with Picasso as all-dominant; when I’d been struggling to find a form of feminist articulation that suited me, I saw Helen Chadwick’s Ego Geometria Sum and felt she’d found hers. I was exhilarated by it - at last something I could visually, sensually and intellectually identify with, although I knew the form her work took was quite different from mine. I wanted to see what would happen if we all changed roles. I asked Helen if I could use her image, and she gave, rather than lent, me the negative. This work was the result.' --- Flick Allen
Slides for Helen Chadwick's artworks; WAL/1/1/3/CHAD_HE
Artist Miriam’s interactions with collections donated by David Notarius on behalf of Helen Chadwick
Pamphlet Piss Flowers.
Press-cutting from Sunday Times Magazine
'A life in the day of Helen Chadwick'
Interview transcripts
A tribute to Helen Chadwick BBC2 1996
