introduction & intentions

Photo by Angelica Sanchez.

BIO, an introduction

Helen Peña is a filmmaker, culture worker and child of the Altantic from Miami, FL. They use filmmaking to tell the stories about women and gender expansive people’s relationship to the natural world for subsistence and spiritual practice. In 2017, Helen co-founded (F)empower, a collective of queer feminist artist-activists. For 2 years, Helen worked in Digital Communications for racial justice organization, the Dream Defenders. Their art and organizing has led them to curating activations at the Museum of Modern Art, the Norton Museum of Art, ICA Miami and more. Their work has been featured in publications like Dazed, i-D magazine, and Hyperallergic. In 2020, Helen participated in the UCLA Sanctuary Spaces Residency, where they worked on their first short film, When Angels Speak of Love, which premiered at Third Horizon Film Festival, showed at festivals around the country, and screened on PBS South Florida. They are currently pursuing an MFA at California Institute of the Arts.