Roots, Realms and Reveries is a two-person exhibition featuring artists Molly Burrows and Woo Jin Joo, whose practices converge through a shared commitment to storytelling across diverse mediums—including embroidery, ceramics, painting, collage, and sculpture. Themes of transformation and imagined worlds unfold through myth-making, with the exhibition taking shape as a narrative journey over two floors of the gallery. Both artists have produced new bodies of works.
The exhibition is accompanied by two distinct soundscapes evoking the repeated whirring of a sewing machine, in one and an arrangement of traditional and classical East Asian percussion instruments, in the other. The score is a response to and intertwines with the works' quiet theatricality - depictions of characters in nature; in landscape, the manifestation of East Asian myths, beliefs, religions and shamanistic rituals which nods to the playful and sincere, curious and reverential, small and fearsome.
London Gallery Weekend 2025 (extended hours)
Fri 6 June: 11.00-18.00
Sat 7 June: 11.00-18.30
Concept & direction by Woo Jin Joo. Original score by Alex Ho. Sound design by Sun Keting. Performance by Beibei Wang. Movement by Kehua Lico.
Sun 8 June: 12.00-17.00
14.30-15.30: A family workshop led by artist Molly Burrows exploring the underlying themes of the exhibition. Recommended ages: 7-12Y .
Limited capacity, RSVP: info@a-i-gallery.com.
----
About the artists
Molly Burrows (b. 2002, Munich; living in London) practice centres on abstraction as a means of accessibility, reducing the human form to simplified shapes that invite openness and relatability. Through painting and collage, her works often portray individuals at ease within natural environments, blending into their surroundings to evoke harmony and interconnectedness.
Burrows’ commitment to accessibility extends beyond her studio. She produces exhibition booklets that demystify artistic processes and offer practical guidance for navigating the contemporary art world, helping make gallery spaces more inclusive.
She has exhibited at institutions including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Drawing Room, Royal West of England Academy, KARST Gallery, The Levinsky, MIRROR Plymouth, Southwark Park Galleries, Copeland Gallery, and Satellite Store. Recent collaborations include New Contemporaries (2024–2025), Yuki Nakayama’s After the Rain at ai. gallery (London Gallery Weekend, 2024), the Camberwell College of Arts Degree Show (2024), and Bold Tendencies’ Summer Programme (2023), including Derek Jarman: Modern Nature.
Woo Jin Joo (b. 1995, Korea; living in London) is an artist whose work delves into the boundaries of human perception, drawing from mythology, folklore, shamanism, and alternative modes of knowing. Joo explores how sculptural forms—often initiated from found or discarded objects—offer a passage into the subconscious, merging the realms of the internal and imagined with the external world. For Joo, the act of working with found elements reflects the happenstance nature of our encounters with the everyday, where even the most mundane interactions can harbour potential for transformation and creativity.
Joo graduated with an MA in Mixed Media Textiles from Royal College of Arts, London (2021). She has exhibited internationally with ai. gallery at Untitled Miami (2024), play at Ruup & Form (2024), Geen Woorden Maar Draden at Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam (2023) amongst other exhibitions. Joo is currently a Cockpit Bagri Award holder (2023) and Elephant Trust Award holder (2023).
