Vessel

Grounded in domestic crafts and the histories of textiles and fibre art, Laura’s practice engages with the legacies of activism and feminism, exploring themes of resourcefulness, labour and material consciousness against the backdrop of a problematic global clothing industry, the environmental crisis and the experiences of female bodies in man-made spaces.

In this exhibition, Laura thinks about objects, spaces and bodies as vessels - entities that carry and transfer energy - and considers consciousness as an energy form in its own right; something contained and released, something that’s shared, and spreads indefinitely. By breaking down the binaries of human and non-human, and synthetic and organic, the work becomes a proposition of a future landscape. Envisioning human-made materials as something with the potential to absorb the matter, energy and invisible substances that our bodies shed as we breath, move and touch, the sculptural work proposes a new quasi-living form in a post-human world that has absorbed and learned from human and natural life-forms. 

Laura Porter (b. 1991 Lewisham) is based between North Devon and South London, and is the founding director and curator of Studio KIND CIC, an artist-led space in Barnstaple, North Devon. Having obtained a BA in fine art from Middlesex University and an MA in sculpture from Camberwell (UAL) Laura has received funding from The British Council, A-n and has exhibited across the country and internationally.