"I want to create a boundary pushing performance which brought me closer to women like myself who would have lived in Venice over a century ago. The lives of women from working class backgrounds are less documented in Venetian fashion history and less celebrated, yet they have a unique story which sets them apart from any other women in Europe at that time, this is the story that I am going to tell. This all female performance makes women more visible and rewrites the history of women suppression within the arts."
Jo Cope
conceptual artist using shoes as a vessel to talk about being human
T Fondaco dei Tedeschi- Venice Design Biennal
Walking on Water - Performance
Walking on Water is the performance and installation project conceived by English conceptual artist, Jo Cope created in collaboration with the Piedaterre brand, specialists in Friulane, the original velvet shoe that from Venice have spread all over the world.
soprano - Lieta Naccari
The performance took place on the "stage" of the ground floor of the department store T Fondaco dei Tedeschi on the Canal Grande. The project came to life, combining the choreographed movements of four dancers, the ancient gestures of a shoe craftswoman and the powerful voice of soprano Lieta Naccari. Through the action of walking and the shoe as the means of expression, the artist investigates female condition nowadays in relation to the stories and paths of women of the past, who preceded her.
Walking on Water - performance
soprano Lieta Naccari and artist Jo Cope
centre
Kristen de la Valiere, Martina Gamboni and Matylda Krzykowski
Francesca Giubilei and Luca Berta
co-curators - Venice Design Biennal