With a background in fashion, performance and leathercraft, Jo Cope, has spent the last decade reimagining an alternative life for shoes. Her work explores the idea that shoes and feet carry deeper meanings and wisdom.
Feet:- Sacred symbols of wisdom in some religions and cultures, the lowest unholy limb in others. Love or hate feet this furthest extremity of the body is often hidden or overlooked. Not everyone uses their feet as their primary mode of transport, those using wheelchairs being one example, but all humans take a journey through life, and it is this concept of the shoe as a vessel to express an aspect of the human condition that Cope is interested in.
Jo’s shoe making is rooted in her family history. Her grandfather was a cobbler and her grandmother was a heel coverer most of her life. This exhibition explores her handcrafted footwear artefacts, recent filmic work. In the exhibition the audience will be asked to think through their feet. Considering walking as a metaphor for life’s journey, with feet, paths, and directions as moral and symbolic guides. Jo is interested in encouraging a deeper look at the power that might be hidden in our feet and their potential to impact positive thoughts and actions.
Jo has exhibited at many prestigious exhibitions and venues internationally including; The History of Shoes at The Decorative Arts Museum Paris 2019, Live Performances at the Venice Design Biennial 2021 and Sadler’s Wells Theatre 2017 as part of the Material Movement Gala and at Buckingham Palace in 2018 as part of the 100 years commemoration of the British Women’s Suffragette Movement. Jo explores fashion’s wider role in art and society, including that of a tool for social activism.
In 2021, she worked with the Graduate Fashion Foundation and Shelter Charity to set up the first ‘Fashion for Social Change’ Award. Her collaborations with the Shelter charity include curating the project ‘Shoes Have Names’, a co-design project where 10 shoe designers worked with 10 previously homeless individuals to tell their stories of positive steps forward.
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