Sculpture, installation, participative practices, immersive technologies, studio-led research methodologies, artists’ writing, destruction art, experiences and perceptions of breaking. the fragment, risk in making artwork and extreme sports, the experience of injury/illness, violence and gender, destruction of the environment, trees, relationship of self and environment (SelfScapes), and immersive technologies for health and wellbeing.

Jo is Assistant Professor in Fine Art teaching on the BA (Hons) Fine Art course and an ASPiRE research fellow affiliated with the Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities (CAMC).

Jo is an artist working across a range of media including sculpture, installation, participative practices, immersive media and drawing. Her artwork and research interests are centered on how making sculpture can explore perceptions and experiences of breaking. This line of enquiry was initiated when, over the space of a year, she broke her wrist, her hand, several ribs and then her collarbone three times whilst mountain biking and when she returned to her studio to make sculpture she found she could only relate to her previous work by breaking it. This led her to explore the relationship between a broken body and an aesthetic preference for breaking. The research interests listed above all stem from here.

Jo doesn’t just break things herself but also provides opportunities for the audience to participate in breaking. Through her sculpture installations she explores audience participation as a means for viewers to reflect on their individual agency and its impact on the environment. Jo’s most recent solo exhibition was Dust at Platform A Gallery in 2023. She has published several book chapters on breaking as making, breaking as a methodology, artistic research, sculpture and an exposition for VIS journal, The Risk of Breaking, on risk-taking in art and extreme sports. Jo is one of the lead organisers of SelfScapes which explores the relationship between self and its environment and partnered with Forestry England. The aim of this research cluster is to investigate both the body and place as sites for interconnected experiences. 

In 2019 Jo was commissioned to create an augmented reality app, Reciprocity Forest, for NetPark and Forestry England which launched in 2022 in app stores. The app explores trees and our relationship to them and involves the community in creating a virtual forest artwork. The app was part of a research project with METAL, the University of Kent and University of Essex, funded by EIRA. The aim was to increase our understanding of how Augmented Reality (AR) apps could be used to change the way we perceive our surroundings, encourage us to spend more time outdoors, and increase wellbeing.

Jo’s website