Una Hamilton Helle

Una spent her time at OSE conducting research and developing work around non-human sentience, roleplaying and the imaginative exploration of place. She co-organised the Earthly Delights event strand, which explored ideas around nature through ethnobotany, Amazon cosmologies, Ogham and landscape gardening in the surroundings of Garden Gate Project in Margate. Her work in the end of year show, The Anthro-Cephalopodic Amalgamation Institute, explored interspecies empathy through a guided meditation which took participants through the journey of transforming from human to octopus. The work took the form of an underwater environment which was experienced one person at a time.

Earlier in the year, during her OSE residency at LIMBO, Una explored the links between gaming, mapping and the subterranean by developing a text-based computer game. In it, the player unravelled a narrative set in a post-climate change future by exploring the depths of a cave system through text, images and sound. Towards the end of the year she has been learning how to use 3D-developing software from previous OSE Associate Kris Lock which will enable her to further develop the project into the digital realm.

Expanding on her interest in game design, she co-organised a series of workshops with invited speakers where we learnt how to make tabletop board games, design Escape Rooms and develop VR. This was in addition to leading the Margate LARP sessions with former OSE Associate George Harding. In these sessions the participants had the chance to test out live action role play as a medium for collective interaction and communication.

Outside of OSE Una curated Waking the Witch, her first touring exhibition as part of Legion Projects. The exhibition features sixteen artists whose work touch upon aspects of witchcraft and open up to the possibilities of magical thinking and nature-based thought processes.