2021 BARBARA HAMMER GRANT FINALIST

helen peña

Helen Peña is a Dominican-American daughter of the Atlantic, filmmaker and community organizer from Miami, FL. She uses filmmaking and video art to tell the stories of poor and dispossessed, Black and brown women. In 2017, Helen co-founded (F)empower, a collective of queer feminist artist-activists, where she co-led a bail fund, a community garden, a queer Caribbean diasporic party, and more. For 2 years, Helen worked in Digital Communications for racial justice organization, the Dream Defenders. While there, she used digital art to breathe life into community organizing campaigns. In 2020, Helen participated in the UCLA Luskin Institute’s Sanctuary Spaces Residency, where she worked on her first short film, When Angels Speak of Love, a ritual portrait of a formerly incarcerated Black queer woman.