Pink. Green. Then, sometimes, blue. For Helen Epega FRSA, sound has color. A sustained note can begin at the edge of her vision and slowly spread, almost like ink moving through water. Music is never something she only hears. She sees it, feels it and experiences it as part of the space around her. That way of experiencing the world has shaped far more than Helen’s music. It has led her to question something most of us rarely consider: who are our creative spaces actually designed for?
Helen is a composer, librettist, writer, synesthetic artist and inventor. In this episode of Intangiblia ™ we talk about opera, culture, accessibility, patents and what happens when an artist stops adapting herself to existing systems and begins inventing new ones instead.
When perception becomes possibility
Helen describes synesthesia as something both magical and overwhelming. Synesthesia means that sound arrives with color. Music, voices and even ordinary background noises can appear in her field of vision, turning what she hears into something she can also see.
For years, she assumed everyone experienced sound this way. It was only later that she understood how different human perception can be. That realization became central to her creative work. If we don’t all perceive the world the same way, why should art be designed as though we do?
The question sounds simple, but it opened the door to something much bigger.
Not asking for permission to belong
Helen’s artistic journey crosses countries, cultures and disciplines. Born in Nigeria and raised partly in London, she describes music as a kind of cultural tango, a way of moving between different identities and bringing others along. That instinct eventually led her to opera.
She wondered what would happen if she brought Pidgin English, spoken by millions of people, into a form historically associated with European traditions. The result was Song Queen: A Pidgin Opera.
The project was not about rejecting opera. It was about expanding what opera could contain. Helen recalls being at the Royal Opera House, wearing an African gele and becoming acutely aware of how unusual her presence seemed in that space. Instead of asking whether there was room for her, she decided to create the room herself.
“I’m going to be part of this art form, and this is how I’m going to do it.”
This decision became a work that brought together language, culture and form in a way rarely seen before. For Helen, the most exciting creative possibilities often live precisely in those spaces between things.
Access should not be an afterthought
The same philosophy eventually led Helen from composer to inventor. She developed what she calls Access as Creative Core, a methodology that treats accessibility not as something added at the end of a project, but as part of the creative architecture from the beginning. A distinction that matters. There is a difference between being accommodated and truly belonging.
From that idea came HiQuu, a patent-pending platform designed to translate live environments into sensory cues based on how individual audience members prefer to experience the world. A person sensitive to flashing lights, for example, could know exactly when they are coming and how long they will last. Someone experiencing hearing loss might receive captioning. Others could receive visual or sensory information suited to their needs. The ambition is not to create separate experiences for separate audiences. It is to keep everyone in the same room. It goes beyond accessibility and lands in belonging by design.
Creativity can also invent
Helen never set out to become an inventor. She set out to solve a problem she could see because of the way she experienced the world. We often place artists and inventors into different boxes, as though creativity belongs to one world and technical problem-solving to another. Helen’s work challenges that distinction.
Artists observe. They interpret. They imagine what does not yet exist. In the loosest and most poetic sense of the word, and with apologies to my fellow lawyers: Artists invent by creating.
For Helen, protecting HiQuu through the patent system is also about authorship in the broadest sense. It lets her document where the idea came from, protect the intention behind it, and help shape how it develops in the world. She does not want the creator to disappear from the story of the invention.
Art can heal, teach and reconnect
Long before HiQuu, Helen had already been exploring another dimension of creativity through Just A Day, an initiative that began by adding one extra day to her tours. This additional day was dedicated to the community.
Artists would bring music, poetry, dance or other forms of expression into places where they could support education, connection and healing. Over time, the methodology reached communities affected by conflict and disaster, and even expanded into skills-sharing initiatives.
Helen speaks beautifully about why this matters. Human survival is not only physical. Ideas, culture, imagination and connection also need to survive. When people sing, move, create and play together, something shifts. Art can create joy in places where hope feels distant and connection where people might otherwise remain separated.
Creator-led innovation
Our conversation also turns toward artificial intelligence and the future of creative work. Helen is clear that she is not anti-technology. In fact, HiQuu itself uses technology and AI as tools. She challenges the idea that innovation must happen to creators rather than with them.
For her, this is a moment for artists to move closer to technology, not further away. Creators already spend their lives imagining alternatives, combining ideas and questioning existing structures. Those abilities are exactly what innovation needs.
Helen argues that artists should be present in the conversations around patents, copyright, AI and policy, not simply as people asking to be protected from change, but as people capable of shaping that change. “Creator-led innovation” is the phrase she returns to. Not technology replacing creativity. Technology guided by it.
Build a bigger table
Near the end of our conversation, Helen shares an image that stayed with me. She does not believe in asking for a seat at someone else’s table. She would rather build such a beautiful, magnificent table that others want to join, and then make sure there are enough chairs for everyone.
The perfect metaphor to understand her work. A Pidgin opera did not ask whether a traditionally European art form had space for another cultural voice. It expanded the art form. HiQuu does not ask audiences who experience the world differently to adapt themselves to an existing performance. It asks the performance to become more human. And Helen’s own journey does not accept the idea that someone must choose between artist, technologist, inventor, mother or advocate. She simply keeps making the table bigger.
Maybe that is what innovation looks like at its best. Not replacing what came before, but widening what becomes possible.
Listen to “Helen Epega: Opera, Synesthesia, and the Invention of Access” on Intangiblia, and join us for a conversation about art, invention, accessibility and what can happen when creators decide to build the future themselves.
Protect the Dream You Are Building
Sometimes creativity begins with a question, a different way of seeing the world, or a problem only you have noticed. Protection for the Inventive Mind is my interactive fieldbook for helping you recognize the value in those ideas, understand what you are creating and explore how intellectual property can help you protect and develop it. Through practical exercises and accessible guidance, it helps you give your ideas the structure, protection and space they need to grow into something larger.
The views and opinions expressed (by the host and guest(s)) in this podcast are strictly their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the entities with which they may be affiliated. This podcast should in no way be construed as promoting or criticizing any particular government policy, institutional position, private interest or commercial entity. Any content provided is for informational and educational purposes only.
