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Helen Piercy

Lecturer, BA (Hons) Animation and Visual Effects

Helen Piercy is a multidisciplinary filmmaker, award-winning animator, and published children’s author whose practice intersects visual storytelling, education, and feminist media. She holds a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design from Norwich University of the Arts and an MA in Animation Direction from the National Film and Television School (NFTS). Her professional career began in London as a freelance animator, before establishing her own educational practice dedicated to accessible and inclusive filmmaking pedagogy.

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portrait photo of lecturer Helen Piercy with long hair and a blue top smiling at camera

Helen has contributed to higher education as a lecturer at the NFTS and as a student mentor for the MA Character Animation programme at Central Saint Martins. Her academic and industry work is underpinned by a commitment to equity and representation in screen-based media. She currently serves as the Educational Director for Animated Women UK, a non-profit organisation advocating for the support, celebration, and advancement of women in the UK’s VFX and animation sectors.

As a practice-based researcher, I explore how animation can function as a feminist interpretive lens, reimagining the work and ideologies of feminist artists through the expressive capacities of movement, abstraction, and temporality. My practice investigates how animation can make visible the often unseen or intangible aspects of feminist experience, such as emotional labour, memory, and trauma. Through experimental and material-led approaches, I examine how animated form can engage symbolically and visually with themes central to feminist thought, including the body, identity, care, resistance, and domesticity. In doing so, my work positions animation not only as a medium of expression but as a critical, situated method for feminist inquiry.

My films have been selected to showcase at acclaimed animation festivals, such as Edinburgh International Film Festival, Encounters Film Festival and the London Short Film Festival.

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Lecturer, BA (Hons) Animation and Visual Effects Lecturer, BA (Hons) Animation

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