Helena Cleeve

About Helena Cleeve

Helena Cleeve works as a postdoc at the Institution for Sociology and Workscience. She was awarded her PhD in 2020 at the Institution for Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Cleeve has a background as a designer and holds a BFA in Industrial Design from Lund University, Lund (2011) and an MFA in Transdisciplinary Design from Parsons the New School for Design, New York, USA (2013). As a transdisciplinary designer Cleeve makes use of her artistic background to develop visual methods in care research. Theoretically and methodologically Cleeve draws on care studies within STS, posthumanism as well as visual studies.

Cleeve's research is focused on care practices. She is particularly concerned with care in relation to daily life with dementia. Cleeve is currently leading the postdoc project The art of working in a dementia care unit – drawing as a method for collegial reflection and learning about ethical dilemmas (FORTE 2022-2024). Her previous research has been focused on the role of everyday things in palliative care and in dementia care.

Cleeve is published in journals such as Sociology of Health and Illness, Design and Culture and Qualitative Research. Cleeve also works with illustration and graphic design in relation to research. Her illustrations have been published in Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies, in the anthology Ett Kalejdoskop av Kunskap, [A Caleidoscope of Knowledge], Sveriges Unga Akademi. She has also illustrated and designed patient brochures in the project PINCORE – Person-centred Information andCommunication in Colorectal Cancer Care.