Laura Eldret’s work explores the commonalities that bring groups together, and the productive tensions in social encounters. Her art offers a gentle nudge to social consciousness and action, bringing alternative voices to the foreground. Eldret’s works have included sculptural fabric installations, posters and drawings, videos and events. She explores aesthetic patterns as emblems of forms of social behaviours. Her practice is a means of investigating the world, learning alongside others, centred on a civic concern to bring diverse publics together.
Her projects have involved working locally and transnationally, in both metropolitan and rural places around the world. Drawing on her studies in anthropology, ethnography and sociology, her work contests art’s autonomy and affirms the value of conversation and social encounters. In 2019 she established More Than Ponies, an ambitious artist-led programme of new commissioned art works centred on the New Forest, advocating for cultural/aesthetic diversity in the region. Exhibitions include: God’s House Tower, Southampton (2020–1); Karst/The Box, Plymouth (2019); Firstsite, Colchester (2018); Turf Projects, Croydon (2017); CCA Derry, NI (2016); Fig-2, ICA, London (2015); South London Gallery (2013). She is currently an Associate Artist in the ‘Schools of Tomorrow’ project at Nottingham Contemporary. She was awarded a Gasworks–URRA residency in Buenos Aires (2016). Eldret is a visiting tutor at Arts University Bournemouth.