Helen Marriage is Director of Artichoke, one of the UK’s most innovative creative companies. Founded in 2006, the company’s presentation of Royal de Luxe’s The Sultan’s Elephant in the heart of central London set a benchmark for large-scale spectacles that invade public space and reinvent the notion of a city’s landscape.

In 2009 Artichoke began its landmark Lumiere series in Durham with events following on in Derry~Londonderry and London. Artichoke has worked across Great Britain and the north of Ireland with Deborah Warner/Fiona Shaw’s Peace Camp as well as creating Temple in Derry in 2015. The following year saw Great Fire 350, a commemoration of the events of 1666 commissioned by the City of London Corporation. In 2018, Artichoke masterminded PROCESSIONS, a celebration of 100 years since the vote was first gained by women in the UK commissioned by 1418 Now. In 2019 she was appointed Creative Director of Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture.

Artichoke came out of lockdown with its Women Making History exhibition, Orlando Gough’s Ready to Drop and in 2022 Sanctuary, a post-Covid memorial made with and for the people of Bedworth, Warwickshire.

Helen’s interests have always centred on the conjunction of art, civic disruption, public engagement and the transformation of daily life. In 2012, she was awarded a prestigious Loeb Fellowship at the Graduate School of Design in Harvard in recognition of her ongoing work with urban life. She was awarded an MBE for Services to the Arts in 2016. She was made a Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2018. She was an Area Council member for Arts Council England in London until her resignation in February 2022.