Vosters Helene, Postdoctoral Fellow and Project Manager

Helene Vosters
Postdoctoral Fellow and Project Manager
Transforming Stories Driving Change
Area(s) of Interest:
Biography
Helene Vosters is an artist-scholar-activist whose work focuses on issues of state violence, social memory, and the role of performance and aesthetic practices in mobilizing community engagement. She earned her Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University where she used performance as a method of embodied inquiry in her investigation into the role of Canadian military commemoration in the production of gendered and raced hierarchies of grievability. A self-taught multi-disciplinary artist—performance, craft, and relational arts—Helene’s practice utilizes a task-based labour aesthetic. Helene’s durational counter memorial meditations include Impact Afghanistan War; Unravel: A Meditation on the Warp and Weft of Militarism; Flag of Tears: Lament for the Stains of a Nation; and Stitch-by-Stitch: A TRC Calls to Action Sewing Circle. Helene has published articles in Canadian and international journals (Performance Research, Theatre Research in Canada, Canadian Journal of Practice-based Research in Theatre, and Canadian Theatre Review), and book sections in Performance Studies in Canada, Performing Objects and Theatrical Things and Theatre of Affect. Helene’s SSHRC postdoctoral book project—Unbecoming Performances of Canadian Nationalism—is due to be published (University of Manitoba Press) in fall 2019. Helene is delighted to be joining the Transforming Stories, Driving Change team!