Best Foot First: Interview with the artist Jo Cope - The Costume Society

Best Foot First: Interview with the artist Jo Cope - The Costume Society

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Interview BY FRANCINE MCMAHON

In this week's blog, Costume Society Ambassador Francine McMahon shares her interview with the incredible artist Jo Cope, in which we gain an insight into her inspiration and artistic process. Jo's work centres around feet and shoes, exploring the physical, social, emotional, and psychological histories embodied in them - some of our members may have been lucky enough to see her work in person at exhibitions such as the Venice Design Biennial, or in her solo shows like the recent 'Only Shoes Can Save us Now' in her hometown of Leicester.

Only Shoes Can Save Us Now - Jo Cope Exhibition at Leicester Gallery 2022/3

ONLY SHOES CAN SAVE US NOW

Jo Cope Solo Show at Leicester Gallery at De Montfort University. Now Open until Feb 4th 23

‘Fitting In’ exhibition at Z33 Belgium.

Jo Cope and the @shoeshavenames project designers/artists are very excited to be traveling to @z33be exhibition tomorrow for the opening night of the ‘Fitting In’ ✨

the exhibition opens to the public on 2nd October 2022 at the Z33 gallery Hasselt.

Our great thanks to the curators @brankopopovic @thoelenannelies and @rummensmarnix for including us in this amazing show along side artists and designers who we admire including : @dress4ourtime Helen Storey and @lucyjorgeorta

Image by @mouslamrabat

Posted @withrepost • @brankopopovic

Fitting In, exhibition opens 1 October at @z33be and is on show from 02.10 to 26.02.23 at Z33 in Hasselt (Belgium)

About:

The world turns increasingly pluriverse. How can we, without losing ourselves, become part of a larger entity? That question forms the starting point of the group exhibition Fitting In. Artists and designers show how lavish our context can be, if we are open to the many voices around us. They understand identities as multi-layered or fluid. In conversation with you they explore the boundaries between fashion, visual art, photography, design and the world.

Participating artists:

Christian Bakalov, Alia Ali, Lisa Konno & Sarah Blok, Mous Lamrabat, Berre Brans, Elisa Van Joolen, Das Leben am Haverkamp: Dewi Bekker, Anouk van Klaveren & Gino Anthonisse, The Fabricant & Teresa Manzo, CFGNY, Ines Alpha, Tom Van der Borght, Jo Cope & Boutique by Shelter, Marwan Bassiouni, Nazanin Fakoor, Helen Storey, Sanne Vaassen, ADIFF Angela Luna, Anais Hazo-Santorin, Elke Lutgerink, Lotje Heidingsfeld, Lucy & Jorge Orta, Mona Steinhaeusser, Sheltersuit, Thierry Geoffroy, Woman Cave Collective: Léticia Chanliau & Chloé Macary-Carney.

📸 work by @mouslamrabat

Not All Roses are Romantic…

London Craft Week performance and installation at the Garden Museum London

‘The Sordid Tuft’ Jo Cope- 2021

About

This event explores, animates and ruptures the once-symbiotic relationship between humans, roses and the natural world. It comprises a collaboration between a conceptual shoemaker (Jo Cope), performance artist (Hollie Miller), sustainable flower designer (Shane Connolly) and curator (Amy de la Haye). Together, they amplify the politicised and ‘darker’ themes raised by the Garden Museum’s current exhibition ‘Wild & Cultivated: Fashioning the Rose’. These include female-flower metaphors, sweated labour within the artificial roses industry and the detrimental environmental impact of the cut roses we buy today.

Jo Cope’s handcrafted ‘Feminist Rose’ (vegetable tan leather, lamb Nappa and beechwood, 2021) is the central installation. This is partly inspired by the French philosopher George Bataille’s declaration that roses are repugnant and paradoxical; when the petals are stripped away all that is left is a ‘sordid tuft’ (1929). Shane Connolly and Amy de la Haye create an installation and various narratives that orbit around this.

On Monday 9 May, Hollie Miller performs a ‘human-plant hybrid’ provocation involving figurative poses that blur the boundaries between people, objects and their environments and provide a politicised commentary on female fertility, sexuality and female/flower analogies. At drop-in performances over the course of the day, she contorts her body to resemble flower forms, animating and camouflaging with the installation created by Jo Cope, Shane Connolly and Amy de la Haye.

‘She Buds’ - handcrafted shoe/rose metaphors - Jo Cope 2021

Words by Amy de la Haye.

Join Us

10-5pm daily 9th May 2022 - Live performance at 11, 12, 2, 3pm. Installation runs 9th-15th May. Tickets can be purchased on the door, no advance booking needed. for more information visit the Garden Museum

Shoes Have Names Tour

Now Open!

at New Brewery Arts Gallery, Cirencester UK

Shoes Have Names is a colaboration between Jo Cope x Shelter Charity.

Following its success at London Craft Week 2020, the Shoes Have Names exhibition has just opened with its first tour partners New Brewery Arts Gallery in Cirencester.

The exhibition showcases the work of 10 designers who were paired with 10 previously homeless individuals to use craft to tell their stories. Each shoe celebrates their positive steps forward since being helped by Shelter.

Shoes Have Names 2022 exhibition - Featuring Caroline Groves shoe

The show has took on a whole new visual curation concept on the tour, with all of the shoes being displayed on wire gabions stuffed with duvets and bedding which will be donated to homeless refuge charities when the show ends.

Shoes Have Names 2022 exhibition - featuring Tabitha Ringwood’s shoe

The link to bedding as an art prop comes from an innitiative ran by the gallery and the local council durring the covid lockdown, where they housed homeless individuals in their on-site hostel accommodation.

The exhibition is open until April 2nd 2022

Image - Shoes Have Names Exhibition 2022 at New Brewery Arts Cirencester