Jo Cope – The Wisdom Is in Your Feet

Solo exhibition at the HUB, Main Gallery in Sleaford, 
Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. On show from 2 December 2023 till 17 March 2024. With a background in fashion, performance and leather craft, 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. 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 Cope
Pushing the boundary of fashion into art, since 2006.

Through her interdisciplinary and conceptually led practice she has carved out a niche for herself focused on our cultural relationship with shoes. She works with adapted traditional shoemaking techniques to create contemporary sculptural artworks which inhabit a world between design and art practice. Cope communicates through many different mediums including craft, film, live performance and installation.

Cope’s shoes exist as visual metaphors, a tool used within art and cognitive therapies to aid mental processing and self reflection. Her human centred approach often explores feminist themes and social practice based collaborations.

Her educational background includes a Masters with distinction in Fashion Artefacts from the London College of Fashion. In 2017 she was invited to represent the university, creating a performance for the Material Movement Gala at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. She was also invited to exhibit at Buckingham Palace to celebrate 100 years of the suffragette movement and worked on the Art Against Knifes project at UAL. Cope 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 and she is a guest speaker at universities internationally.

The Wisdom Is in Your Feet
Location: Hub
, Main Gallery
Navigation Wharf, Carre Street, Sleaford, 
Lincolnshire, United Kindom.
On show: 2 Dec 2023 – 17 Mar 2024
Opening times are:
 Mon to Sat – 10am-5pm
, Sun – 10am-4pm, Bank Holidays – 10am-4pm.
We are closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

Entry to the Hub is FREE and open to everyone.
 Charges apply for some workshops & events. More exhibition information.

Find here more shoe works by Jo Cope at the VirtualShoeMuseum.