Angela

Ellen Sampson

Dr Ellen Sampson x Angela, 2020.

This shoe was made for the Shoes Have Names exhibition in collaboration with Jo Cope and Shelter UK which uses the power of craft to bring awareness to the individuals who face homelessness and eviction each day.

“I wanted to make an image that recorded that intimacy and the shift in Angela and Kardi’s lived experience from homelessness to homed.” Angela and her son Kardi’s story made me think the about the nature of home, and in particular, of the experience of coming home and the tangle of shoes that always greet me when I open the door. More than that, it made me think about family, and the intimate bonds between mother and child.

We worked together to develop a pair of cyanotype prints of their shoes from both periods of being homeless and homed (Kardi’s feet have really grown!)

The result is a set of cyanotypes, an early photographic process which creates detailed images in evocative shades of blue.

Photo by Dan Lowe.


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