I'm Jo Hepburn, sculptor, educator, and the founding force behind The Crit Collective + 87a CRITS.

I started this because I couldn’t find what I needed: a local space to think critically, to test ideas, to take risks, and to go deep. After years of making in isolation, and during a pivotal residency at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, I began laying the groundwork for what has become 87a CRITS, a platform built from the ground up for serious contemporary practitioners who want more than polite nods.

 

My own sculptural practice is rooted in material-led thinking. I work with fragile, often overlooked materials: papier-mâché, old carpet, tape, detritus, to explore the body as both structure and suggestion. Through performance, absurdity, and precarity, I ask what materials can say that words can’t. I use play to tackle serious questions, about visibility, tension, belief, and the quiet strength of things that aren’t built to last.

 

87a CRITS is my way of opening up that space, for others who are making brave, strange, urgent work. It's a space for real talk, deep questions, and collective momentum.

Not an art club. Not a drop-in. Not a place for ego.

It’s for people who want to challenge and be challenged, who believe in their work enough to test it in public.

It’s about commitment, rigour, generosity, and a shared hunger to push forward.