معرفی
Helen Gilbert is Professor of Environmental Arts in the Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance at Royal Holloway, University of London. An internationally recognized scholar with academic appointments in Australia, Canada, Germany, and Japan, she directs major transnational research initiatives including the ERC-funded project on Indigenous performance and the current AHRC-funded CoastARTS project on coastal resilience through performance arts.
Her research spans three decades of groundbreaking work at the intersection of environmental justice, Indigenous performance, and climate activism. Key thematic focuses include human-environment interactions in the Anthropocene, race and representation in global theatre, and transnational Indigenous artistic practices. Theoretical frameworks combine postcolonial and ecocritical approaches to analyze performative responses to ecological crises, with particular attention to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the Pacific Islands.
Major publications include the award-winning Sightlines: Race, Gender and Nation (1998), Performance and Cosmopolitics (2007), and the recent co-edited volume Marrugeku: Telling That Story (2021). Her work consistently bridges academic scholarship with tangible artistic outcomes, exemplified by the EcoCentrix exhibition that brought 40+ international Indigenous artists to London.
- Humboldt Research Prize (2016)
- DAAD Guest Professorship (2018-2020)
- International Convention of Asia Studies Book Award (2015)
- Marlis Thiersch Prize (2015)
- Richard Plant Prize (2004)
Professor Gilbert leads significant funded research including the active AHRC project CoastARTS: Coastlines as Zones of Ecocultural Crisis (2025-2028) and the British Academy-funded Transnational Mobilisations of Climate-related Live Arts from the Pacific (2024-2025). Her supervision encompasses 10+ postgraduate research projects focused on Indigenous performance and environmental arts. Current creative initiatives include developing arts-based eco-activism methodologies through the EcoCentrix network and curating transnational performance responses to climate migration.
