News
Jo Cope x Shelter
Shoes Have Names - The first leg of the touring exhibition at Shelter Boutique as part of London Craft Week 2020 is a wrap!
We would like to thank everyone who came and emotionally engaged in the individual shoes and the homeless stories crafted into them.
For more information about the Shoes Have Names project visit ->
‘Shoes Have Names’ Exhibition
You are invited! 30th Sept -7th Oct 2020
I invited 10 designers/artists from the UK and Worldwide to create bespoke shoe artworks in response to 10 stories of individuals helped by the Shelter Charity who had faced homelessness. The resulting shoes will be on display as part of the postponed London Craft Week 2020 at Shelters flagship boutique at Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross, London.
The exhibition will go ahead with all social distancing guidelines in place.
We hope to see you there!- to celebrate the positive power of fashion in society.
On and Beyond
Israeli boot exhibition unlocked
The exhibition creates a fascinating visual discussion on 'boots' as a transitional object. More than 40 designers from Israel and abroad will give their interpretation for the boot as a Border, Transitional and Beyond object. From a shoe to a boot, from body to environment, from a functional item to a conceptual object, from passion-lust to pain and more at Hachava -The Farm Gallery
In March 2020 the On and Beyond exhibition was due to open in Tel Aviv Israel. The same month Covid -19 caused the shut down of homes, businesses and cultural centres which led to the exhibition being postponed. The date on which this will now go ahead is still uncertain, but I have taken this opportunity to interview the curators Yamit Newman and Pazit Keidar to find out more about their unique vision for presenting boots and why this is a significant show for both Israel and the wider world context.
When I was asked to propose a new work for the exhibition, I considered the current times in relation to logistics, shipping, sustainability and the growing shifts in fashion for exploration within the digital realm. I decided to create a new digital work called 'Wearing the World' in collaboration with London based motion graphics artist Jacob Escott. I will be talking more about the inspiration behind this piece and sharing more moving image clips in a future blog.
Jo Cope in conversation with curators Yamit Newman and Pazit Keidar
Could you explain a little bit about your practice as curators, how this came about and your creative vision?
Our vision in curating is to engage design to people. For us it is the best way to tell a story and to ask questions about history, present and future. We focus on the timeline and associate it with human elements such as innovation, inspiration and beliefs.
In an exhibition we try to take our visitors on a journey in which they would experience this complex texture of creativity.
What has your experience of lockdown been like in Israel? Have their been any unexpected positives creatively or otherwise?
From the first days the Israeli government approach towards the COVID-19 situation was very serious. Israel was in a tight 3 weeks of quarantine and even now when the quarantine is slightly over, we are experiencing a slow everyday life existence.
Most of cultural life is still completely closed.
Museums, Theatres and Tourism are among the areas that have been tremendously affected.
This imposed time was also an amazing opportunity to bring to life forgotten projects and work in a new different pace. We think the opportunity to use this break in a creative structural way, vary from one person to another.
We hope this was an opportunity for our creative exhibitors to do the same.
On & Beyond is an exhibition that you are curating with a unique theme and dialogue around boots; could you explain more about the exhibition concept/s.
Boots are a fascinating historical reflection of the human race. They reflect social, economic and technological processes; their design represents touchstones of existence and symbolise points of time, place and emotion.
In the exhibition we present boots from two angles. One is a concrete item, with a functional role made of substance material. The other is as an object that resonates with other worlds and includes historical, social, cultural, political and economic meanings.
The artists and designers you have selected for the show all appear to have very different and unique practices; can you tell us more about some of the artworks that will be on display and why you chose them.
Part of our curatorial research in this exhibition is an understanding of tradition and craft as cultural and visual documentation through a boot.
We were looking for designers that addressed the slow fashion, industrial, virtual reality and intrusive digital tools that express the transitions in space and media. On the one hand traditional craft, shoe making, leather, needles, cutting, sewing, soft materials and longing for the initial essence of shoe making, and on the other hand we sought to see the industrialisation processes and the digital world that shares our reality; observing the processes of construction and dismantling.
On and Beyond exhibition presents a selection of fascinating designers that address these cultural transitions and the physical transitions in body perception from shoe to a boot and beyond, through a different and exciting conceptual visual design interposition.
What do you think is the importance of this exhibition to Israel and the wider context? Are the show venues significant to the audience you wish to inspire/attract?
A design exhibition in Israel appeals to the viewer from various ways; through the exciting history of the young country to the overwhelming successes that young designers manage to achieve through extensive knowledge of technology and boundless creativity through their personal stories that often relate to the concept based on family ethnic inspiration. The wonderful Gallery where the exhibition will be displayed is also an historic place that was build in middle 1900’s. It's an Arabic authentic architectural gem; the original painted floor and windows was preserved and in 1960 the Arabic house was converted into a gallery specialising in multidisciplinary design and art.
Is there any interesting Israeli shoe /boot history that we should know about?
From the Israeli history aspects we choose 3 approaches for our point of view; the first is telling the story of the immigrant that worked on the land before Israel was established. The other 2 approaches is focused of how Israel became a fashion society; one is Betzalel and Shankar design academy that shows the great work of design art and technological aspect of boots.
Stay posted on Instagram for updates on when the exhibition will open!
Global Classroom
The Global Classroom - Leicester to Lahore
This year Jo Cope is invited by Dean SVAD Mr. Rashid Rana to join the first ever 'Global Classroom' Summer School Programme ran by the Mariam Dawood School of Visual Arts and Design in Lahore, Pakistan.
Leicester to Lahore
This year invited by Dean SVAD Mr. Rashid Rana I will join the first ever 'Global Classroom' Summer School Programme ran by the Mariam Dawood School of Visual Arts and Design in Lahore, Pakistan.
This year myself and fellow Mind Fashion Collective member Adam Peacock will be offering an individual lecture /workshop to students from anywhere in the world.
Next year I will be hoping to extend this opportunity to a full 6 weeks course!
The Covid-19 lockdown has already allowed many universities to take big strides in making learning a borderless space. I am currently teaching MA fashion,Textile and footwear innovation students from De Montfort University Leicester and Nottingham Trent University via a virtual classroom where many of the students have returned home to different parts of the globe.
Dean Rashid Rana who is said to be Pakistan's leading artist, represented by Lisson Gallery London and previously representing Pakistan at the Venice Design Biennial; talks about the importance of the Global Classroom concept.
Notes from the Dean – 'The term One planet, One Classroom reaches much farther than its simplification in a sentence. It attempts to encompass the breadth of the virtual realm and its consumption into the material world where we as people operating in distant realms, remain no longer distant to teach and learn from each other – in spaces real or imagined.
Zainab S. Barlas -Global Classroom Summer School programme manager, commented 'This is programme redefines teaching'
For me, an important factor of the Global Classroom concept is the richness of dialogue experienced when engaging with students from different cultural backgrounds; both teacher and students can grow and learn a great deal from this exchange.
It has never been feasible to jump on a plane for a one hour lecture, but now a form of teleportation really does exist, so these are exciting times.
Check out the link below to the online catalogue to see the many amazing and unique course available by brilliant academics and practitioners from around the world.
Many are already fully booked! .…….See you in soon in the Global Classroom!
This Years Global Classroom Map
Click on the link for the full online catalogue >> https://glo.bnu.edu.pk/