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ResearchGate​
Academic Service
Peer Reviewer, Journal of Creative Research Methods (Policy Press / Bristol University Press)
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Publications
Journal Article- Helmi, X. (2026). HOSPITAL NOISES: Sonic Autobiography and the Embodied Experience of Autistic Auditory Perception – A Transdisciplinary Arts-Practice Inquiry Journal of Creative Research Methods, 2(1), May 2026. Early View: end of March. Policy Press / Bristol University Press View HERE​
Poetic Inquiry- Helmi, X. (2025). To Be Unmade. Indelible Literary and Arts Journal, Issue 9 (Theme: Awakening). London Arts-Based Research Centre. View HERE
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Presentations
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Helmi, X. (2025, September). The Numinous Ear: Autistic listening and aural diversity as a gateway to the divine and sublime. Aural Diversity Conference, MediaCity, Manchester.
Helmi, X. (2025, May). The Numinous Ear: Autistic listening and aural diversity as a gateway to the divine and sublime. Sacred Arts 2025, London Arts-Based Research Centre, University of Oxford.
Helmi, X. (2025, June). The Numinous Ear: Autistic listening and aural diversity as a gateway to the divine and sublime.
University of Salford, English Research Day, Manchester.
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About
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My PhD sits at the intersection of aural diversity, neurodivergence, music, film, poetic inquiry, and phenomenology. Situated within transdisciplinary arts-based and practice-led research, my work understands creative practice as a mode of inquiry through which knowledge emerges in and through making, listening, and lived experience.
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I explore how autistic musicians experience and translate their auditory worlds into artistic forms through instrumental performance, improvisation, and multimodal practice. I approach listening as dynamic, embodied, and relational: shaped by memory, affect, and perceptual orientation rather than abstract cognition alone.
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My research challenges linear and disembodied models of knowledge by foregrounding lived sensory experience as a legitimate site of inquiry. Rather than treating sound as a fixed object of analysis, I understand it as a relational event emerging through the interaction of body, perception, and environment. Through multimodal arts practice, I develop creative and conceptual ways of articulating dimensions of auditory experience that exceed the limits of verbal language.
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My academic background spans music, broadcasting, sociology, documentary film, education, and psychotherapeutic counselling. ​My research draws on transdisciplinary arts-based research, heuristic inquiry, autoethnographic reflexivity, and composition as primary research methods.
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Research Areas
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Transdisciplinary and practice-led artistic research
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Neurodivergent listening, aural diversity, and autistic sonic perception
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Embodied phenomenology of sound and somatosensory experience
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Sonic agency, affect, and relational consciousness
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The numinous and transcendent dimensions of autistic sonic experience
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Hospital machine soundscapes as musical and compositional material
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Arts-based therapeutic and decolonial praxis
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Current Research Projects
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Hospital Noises: The Hidden Orchestra of Hospital Machines — Autistic Listening and the Emergence of Music from Hospital Machine Soundscapes
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This project explores autistic auditory perception through the embodied experience of hospital machine sounds. Through improvisation, composition, and transdisciplinary arts practice, the rhythmic signals, pulses, and mechanical textures encountered in hospital wards are translated into musical compositions and multimodal artworks.
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The Numinous Ear: Autistic Listening and Aural Diversity as a Gateway to the Divine and Sublime — Exploring Sonic Consciousness through Phenomenology, Panpsychism, and Process Philosophy
This project explores how autistic hearing can give rise to intense sonic encounters with the numinous — the mysterium tremendum et fascinans — as experiences of awe, terror, sublimity, and expanded relational awareness. Drawing on Rudolf Otto’s concept of the numinous and Jung’s later engagement with it through archetypes and individuation, the project considers how autistic sonic experience can evoke profound psychological and affective states. Through arts-based practice and embodied listening, it asks how autistic encounters with sound might open altered modes of perception while remaining grounded in lived sensory experience.
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Scholarships
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PhD Studentship- The Leverhulme Trust Aural Diversity Doctoral Research (LAURA)
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BAFTA Reuben Scholarship- MA Filmmaking (Screen Documentaries) Goldsmiths, University of London.
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Honorary MA Radio Student status, granted by Emeritus Professor Tim Crook, Goldsmiths, University of London.
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Education
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University of Salford (2024–2028)
PhD in Music / Film / Arts
Leverhulme Trust Aural Diversity Research Doctoral Hub (LAURA)
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University of Greenwich (2022–2024)
PGCE (FE, QTLS), Level 7
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Goldsmiths, University of London (2018–2020)
MA Filmmaking (Screen Documentary) – BAFTA Reuben Scholar
Honorary MA Radio Student (granted by Professor Tim Crook)
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University of Cambridge (2016–2017)
PGCert Child & Adolescent Psychotherapeutic Counselling
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Goldsmiths, University of London (2009–2012)
BA Sociology
Teaching and Pedagogic Practice
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I have over six years’ experience teaching across secondary, alternative provision, and further education, delivering courses in music, media, social sciences, humanities, and the creative arts.
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I hold a PGCE FE (QTLS). My teaching is informed by constructivist and humanistic approaches, with a focus on student-centred learning, critical thinking, and inclusive practice. I have extensive experience supporting neurodivergent learners and students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD), developing adaptive approaches that foster responsive and equitable learning environments.
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I have worked as Course Lead, Programme Manager, and lecturer across a range of Level 3 programmes, including Access to Psychology, Access to Social Sciences, Access to Teaching, the RSL Vocal Diploma, and UAL Diplomas in Creative and Performing Arts, with a particular focus on supporting progression to higher education.
