Floor Shoes

Floor Shoes - Jo Cope 2020

Floor Shoes were a response to going from working in a larger studio space to working in a home attic room with limited materials and facilities during early lockdown 2020. I started to think about how I could conceptually represent the feeling of standing still in the home environment, especially after multiple sheduled exhibitions had been cancelled or postponed.

Floor Shoes are made from Wool Felt material and are hand formed ‘slipper like’ shells/openings for the feet. The hand cut floor tiles that surround them create an extended reality, in which the shoes become almost ‘part of the floor’ or as the more common saying goes - ‘becoming part of the furniture’

There is of course HOPE- the word associated with later 2020 UK and wider world lockdowns that we are experiencing right now. The piece is designed to be able to be reconfigured to suggest that we might not be as static or restricted as we initially believed. In fact in my own practice whole new online worlds have opened up and many new projects and conversations initiated, which I am very excited about.

We are slowly learning that no obstacle is immovable and that there is always a way of moving forward with a little lateral thinking and creativity.

*See the full series of images under Shoe Artworks

The Lates - Talk

The Power of Ethical Design - Jo Cope - Ravensborne University talk

"Ethical design is making responsible choices that benefit individuals, society, and the world. It is about the design process, our work practices, how we collaborate with others and the significance of the end products” (The Lates)

This week I spoke to students and departments across design and fashion disaplines at Ravensbourne University about how I incorporate impactful ethical practices into my work. In particular my journey to curating the Shoes Have Names project in colaboration with Shelter charity in September 2020 at Boutique by Shelter in Coal Drops Yard for London Craft Week.

Thank you to the host Liz Ciokajlo, senior lecturer BA Fashion Accessory and textile futures, also one of the 10 designers for Shoes Have Names and all of the other faculties and departments and students who signed up! It was a great event.

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 ->

www.shoeshavenames.com

‘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!