The delicate installation features a modified snail shell, meticulously drilled to create tiny perforations. Illuminated from within, the shell is placed inside a cast iron tube, concealed within a gallery wall. First exhibited in Woolley’s 2010 degree show—later touring to the Cube Gallery, Manchester—the piece has since appeared in numerous exhibitions, including Life, The Universe and Everything in Chester, where it won first prize. It has also been shown at Contemporary Art Space Chester, Islington Mill Salford, Piccadilly Place Manchester, and the Grosvenor Museum Chester. As a pivotal work in Woolley’s artistic journey, this piece encapsulates her mastery of fragile materials, reinterpreting them through a deeply poetic and philosophical lens.

The title, Helix, references both the Latin word for galaxy and Helix Aspersa, the scientific name for the garden snail. The work explores the interplay between the microcosm and the macrocosm, suggesting how one can be reflected within the other through the spiral theory and the golden ratio. The cast iron tube functions as both a microscope, peering into the smallest forms of life, and a telescope, gazing into the vastness of the cosmos—questioning the intricate pattern of interconnection that binds them.

"Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars." — Walter Benjamin