Helen Petts was one of the first people in the UK to experiment with low budget video equipment in the community video movement in the 1980’s. Working in collectives to explore identity, humour and a feminist point of view through the eyes of young women and teenage girls, she worked mainly with Connections and West London Media, running workshops, mostly for women. Her video “MsTaken Identity” made with Karen Alexander and Albany Video won Best Foreign Video award in 1986 at the Turin Youth Film Festival and was broadcast on the experimental Channel 4 Eleventh Hour series, who co-funded it with Ken Livingstone’s left-wing Greater London Council.  Over the next few years she worked as a researcher and producer/director, making films for television including the BBC2 arts series The Late Show. A major road accident in 1991 shifted her into a different direction and she subsequently studied Fine Art at Goldsmith’s College. She now makes work for gallery installation and has collaborated with many experimental musicians exploring improvisation in both music and image. Her current work is distributed by Lux Artists' Moving image.