I Wonder What Place This Is: Elizabeth Allen and Woo Jin Joo

About

Saturday 16 January - Monday 3 May 2027 | 10am - 4pm every day
The Harley Gallery
Free entry

I Wonder What Place This Is brings together textile artworks by Elizabeth Allen (1883–1967) and contemporary artist Woo Jin Joo. Working more than 50 years apart, both artists share a compelling approach to using and reusing materials, creating their own worlds and finding magic in the everyday.

Elizabeth Allen was a self-taught artist who created colourful fabric pictures from scraps of cloth and old clothing. Working from a hut in the Kent countryside, she drew inspiration from her life, beliefs and the world around her, gaining recognition for her work in her eighties.

Woo Jin Joo is a contemporary artist whose sculptures, embroideries and installations bring stories and folklore to life. Influenced by her Korean and Chinese heritage, she transforms found objects and discarded materials into fantastical sculpural installations.

In the Harley Gallery, discover 20 works by Elizabeth Allen, including six that have not been shown publicly since the 1960s. These are displayed alongside sculptures, embroideries and two newly commissioned textile works by Woo Jin Joo, inspired by Allen's missing artworks.

In the museum, see Joo's contemporary works presented amongst artworks collected by the Cavendish family and their descendants over the last 400 years, creating new connections between historic and contemporary art.

Header image: Ardour by Woo Jin Joo. Viscose thread embroidery, 38 x 49cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Ruup & Form. Photograph by Robert Chadwick.