BIOGRAPHY

Born in 80s London, Celeste Bell spent a part of her childhood with her mother, punk-icon Poly Styrene in George Harrison’s Hare Krishna commune in Hertfordshire and her early adolescence in Brixton, South London. As a young adult Celeste spent several years living in Madrid where she worked as a teacher and fronted a ska-punk band, ​Debutant Disco​/Celeste Dos Santos and The Tabloid Queens. After her mother passed away in 2011, Celeste became the custodian and manager of her mother’s artistic estate and archive, and after a brief stint in Barcelona to complete a master’s degree in Political Philosophy, Celeste returned to London to work on a book and film project documenting Poly Styrene’s life and work. The book, ​Day Glo: The Poly Styrene Story​ was co-authored by Zoe Howe and published in March, 2019 by Omnibus Press. The documentary film ​I Am A Clichè​, which Celeste is co-directing alongside Paul Sng, was released in the UK in early 2021 and in the US in 2022. In 2021, the film was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland and Grierson Award and won the BIFA Best Documentary and Raindance Discovery Awards and Celeste was nominated for the Douglas Hickox Best Debut Director Award.

An exhibition of the first viewing of the Poly Styrene archive, titled ​Identity: A Poly Styrene Retrospective​ was held at the 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning gallery in Brixton. Celeste is currently planning the exhibition tour, with exhibitions in the pipeline for Los Angeles and New York. Besides working on the documentary film and exhibition tour, Celeste continues to work as an educator and has recently finished writing a soon to be published novella, Dystopian Musings At The Dawing of the Age of Kali, and is currently developing a book and film project focused on her experiences with new religious movements.

​