For Seoul-born artist Woo Jin Joo, a battered side table or a single lost mitten can be a portal. Living in London and commuting to her studio in Deptford, she gathers cast-off furniture, garments, and other debris and folds them into sculptures with clay and gleaming viscose thread. The results are uncanny hybridsanimal bodies that appear to fuse with domestic fixturesincluding human-sized figures draped in white and beige fringe that slump or rest against the wall as if pausing between stories. I am not actively looking for anything in particular, but I discover them by happenstance, and they become meaningful; they provoke my imagination, she says. This is how I feel like we conjure meaning in our lives.
Joos practice pivots on the idea that even the most mundane interactions can harbour potential for meaning and transformation. Her cross-cultural background underpins that openness. Im Korean-Chinese, and I have been raised between the two countries. The culture and stories from these East Asian countries form my memory and psyche. But equally, the physicality of my living in London, and the physical encounter with certain objects is what brings out certain imagery or ideas, she shares. The lives her materials have led are part of the draw: I am left to imagine, build, and find meaning in objects that has its own history. Naturally, it is not always that I discover an object that draws me, but I still have other creative ideas that exist within my imagination that I can turn to.
Sculptures that meet you at your scale
Scale is central. Several works are as tall as the artist, inviting viewers to move around them and measure their own bodies against the pieces. The larger sculptures feel extra enchanting to me too as the artist, from the process of ideation to production, of how what once lived in my mind comes to inhabit a corner of my studio space as a fully animated being, she says.
Recent works map the breadth of her vocabulary in fiber and found forms. I Hear Things Existing With Me (2026) weaves viscose thread embroidery, textiles, wadding, stainless steel rod, and wood into a 155 x 53 x 40 centimeter presence. A Long Long Time Ago (2022) layers viscose thread embroidery with old socks, textiles, wadding, and stainless steel rod at 120 x 60 x 45 centimeters. The black boot-wearing ochre arch of For Those Who Wade (2025) spans 190 x 100 x 16 centimeters with viscose thread embroidery, suede boots, and stainless steel rod. In Murmur (2025), a totemic leg rises beneath a carved wooden table, combining viscose thread embroidery, a wooden table, and ceramic at 160 x 35 x 27 centimeters. Other pieces include the compact Dusk Dokkaebi (2022) at 23 x 32 x 23 centimeters; the twin-panel Oneiric Vessel (2025) at 182 x 60 x 4 centimeters (each panel); and Shivers, Quivers and Silence (2026) at 17 x 21 centimeters.
In London, Joos solo exhibition Bodily Inbetweenness is on view at Ruup & Form before November 13. Looking ahead, she will present work at the Harley Foundation in Nottinghamshire in early 2027. Until then, you can keep up with her practice on Instagram.
