Recent projects include work with Plymouth schoolchildren and a call-to-action film screened at Tate Modern
Arts University Plymouth has appointed artist, writer and researcher Dr Laura Hopes as Lecturer on BA (Hons) Fine Art.
Laura makes work about land: who shapes it, who controls it and what industrial and agricultural activity leaves behind. Her research focuses on the relationship between climate change and colonisation, especially in relation to extractive or agricultural land practices. Depending on the question, she works through sculpture, film, performance, installation or public participation, often bringing other people into the process.
She describes herself as a “vulnerable practitioner”, willing to begin without a fixed answer and let collaboration change the work that is created.
In 2025, Laura was one of 17 international visual artists chosen for Remember Nature 2025, a new staging of the project initiated in 2015 by artist and environmental activist Gustav Metzger.
For Functional Disobedience: A Vow for Nature, Laura worked with children from High Street Primary Academy in Stonehouse, Plymouth. Using wooden scaffolding poles and clamps reclaimed from industry, they made structures asking how trees can be noticed and protected as development changes the city around them. The work was shown at KARST in Plymouth. Laura’s accompanying call-to-action film was screened at Tate Modern as part of Remember Nature 2025: Calls to Action.
Laura also worked with artist collective LOW PROFILE on Let’s SEA Your Tatts, gathering images and stories connected to almost 300 maritime tattoos. Part of Sea for Yourself, led by Plymouth Culture with Plymouth Sound National Marine Park and Plymouth City Council, the commission resulted in three film-poems, a temporary tattoo parlour and a public sharing event.
Laura is a studio holder at KARST and Creative Network Lead for Take A Part’s Creative Coastal Communities Network.
In 2026, Laura was one of 155 artists awarded an a-n Artists’ Bursary for 2025–26, from a field of more than 1,300 applications. She was also one of 12 participants selected through open submission for The Cornwall Workshop at Kestle Barton.
For her 2026 solo installation PORTALS at Traction Project Space in Exeter, Laura drew on Cornish mining landscapes and remnants from a thatched farm on the north coast to consider extraction, migration, waste and what places retain.
Before joining Arts University Plymouth, Laura was an Associate Lecturer, Module Lead and Stage Lead in Fine Art and Contemporary Art Practice at the University of Plymouth from 2020 to 2025. She holds a PhD with a thesis entitled ‘Being Vulnerable: Distances of the Sublime Anthropocene’, an MA with Distinction in Contemporary Arts Practice and a first-class BA (Hons) Fine Art.
Laura said: “Fine Art at Arts University Plymouth prioritises learning through materials, giving time and space for processes and skills to develop and risks to be taken with making. This strongly aligns with my personal approach as an artist, researcher and educator and allows me to create the conditions supporting unexpected and chance encounters, letting materials, research themes and time guide the outcomes.”
BA (Hons) Fine Art at Arts University Plymouth gives students room to develop an individual practice across traditional and contemporary media, from drawing, painting and sculpture to sound, glass, installation, video, performance and projection mapping.
Students work in large open-plan studios, use specialist workshops and learn through making, discussion and critical enquiry. MIRROR, the university’s public gallery for contemporary art, sits on campus, while links with The Box, KARST and other cultural organisations give students opportunities to encounter artists and curators, test ideas and exhibit beyond the university.
In the National Student Survey 2026, BA (Hons) Fine Art received 100% positive responses to 12 of the 27 individual questions and positive response rates of 90% or above to 20. Both academic support questions received 100% positive responses: “How easy was it to contact teaching staff when you needed to?” and “How well have teaching staff supported your learning?”
Sarah King, Senior Lecturer and Course Leader for BA (Hons) Fine Art, said: “We are delighted to welcome Laura to the Fine Art team. Her thoughtful and materially engaged practice brings urgent questions around land, climate and social and environmental justice into dialogue with collaboration, participation and making.
“Laura brings a strong research profile alongside a generous and student-centred approach to teaching. Her openness to experimentation, uncertainty and unexpected outcomes closely reflects the way our students are encouraged to develop their own individual practices, and she will make a valuable contribution to the course and our wider Fine Art community.”
The appointment comes during Arts University Plymouth’s 170th anniversary year. Founded in 1856 as Plymouth Drawing School, the university has been named Arts University of the Year in the Daily Mail University Guide 2027.
Find out more about BA (Hons) Fine Art at aup.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/ba-hons-fine-art.
