Ruup & Form
7 Tilney Court, London, EC1V 9BQ
Tickets Via Selvedge Website - Click Here to Buy
With Isabella Smith, Woo Jin Joo and Christopher Kelly
Presented by Ruup & Form for London Textile Month in collaboration with Selvedge Magazine
Threads have always carried stories. Woven, knotted, and stitched across time. In this special gathering, writer and editor Isabella Smith will be in conversation with gallery artists Woo Jin Joo and Christopher Kelly exploring the transformative role of textiles in contemporary art.
Woo Jin’s practice is steeped in intimacy and memory, where each fibre holds echoes of place, tradition, and personal myth. Christopher Kelly’s fibre and textile sculptures, crafted from salvaged and elemental materials explore neurodivergent experience, sensory language, and community connection through tactile, immersive, and collaborative forms.
Together, they will discuss process and instinct, materials found and transformed, and how cloth can become both a keeper of history and a seed for reinvention.
Part of the exhibition In Company of the Unexpected, this exchange celebrates the material and conceptual power of textiles today. It invites you to linger in the in-between—where the familiar softens into the unknown, and the unexpected quietly takes root.
London Textile Month 2025
This September, London becomes a tapestry of colour, texture, and story as Selvedge leads a citywide celebration of textiles from around the globe. Enthusiasts, makers, and designers will gather for talks, workshops, and inspiring encounters.
Building on a rich programme of events since 2010, London Textile Month 2025 will span heritage studios, boutique spaces, and national museums, offering a journey through the city’s textile culture—where tradition meets innovation and every thread carries a story.
About Selvedge magazine:
Founded by Polly Leonard in 2004, Selvedge celebrates the culture of cloth, from heritage craftmanship to contemporary design. Aside from their bi-monthly print publication read by 75 000 people worldwide, Selvedge also offers workshops, talks, tours, a podcast and annual fairs, connecting inspiring textile stories with immersive experiences.
Isabella Smith
Isabella Smith is a freelance arts journalist and editor with bylines in The Financial Times, The Guardian, and World of Interiors, among others. She was previously Senior Editor at Apollo magazine, and before that Deputy Editor at the Crafts Council’s magazine, Crafts. She is the author of Lucie Rie (Eiderdown Books, 2022).
Christopher Kelly
Christopher Kelly is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans sculpture, craft, and design, with a focus on handmade objects and material experimentation. Working within the expanded field of fibre and textile sculpture, he employs the slow, meditative processes of weaving, macramé, and crochet, using salvaged and elemental materials such as jute twine, hemp rope, found fibres, and eggshells. His works form a sensory language that is both deeply personal and socially resonant.
Rooted in his neurodivergent experience, Kelly’s practice explores how cognitive difference shapes perception, emotion, and identity. Materiality becomes a means to externalise internal states, creating tactile forms that invite connection and understanding. Community engagement is integral to his methodology, with collaborations involving Central Saint Martins Museum, Mind UK, Autism Bucks, and the Psychological Professions Network, fostering spaces of shared authorship and collective expression.
His ongoing project Interwoven: Neurodiversity and the Creative Mind examines the lived experience of AuDHD through immersive and collaborative sculptural works. Recent presentations include Clerkenwell Design Week, House of Annetta, Enso Gallery, and London Craft Week, alongside workshops and community collaborations. His work has been featured in Dezeen Magazine, Stir World, and Morphology by Lotje Søderlund (2025).
Woo Jin Joo
Woo Jin is an artist working predominantly with textiles and embroidery. She holds an MA in Textiles from the Royal College of Art (2021) and a BA in Textile Design from Central Saint Martins (2019), having also completed a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design with Distinction.
Her work has been exhibited widely, including Thread Count at Art Station, Personal Treasure at Nunnery Gallery, and Photo London at Somerset House (2024), as well as Bring Your Light at Nunnery Gallery and Tailored at Sunny Bank Mills Gallery (2023). Previous exhibitions include Dutch Design Week and the East London Art Prize shortlist (2022).
Woo Jin’s practice has been recognised with the Cockpit Bagri Award and an A-N Artist Bursary (2023), and she was a finalist for the Hari Art Prize and East London Art Prize (2022). She has also received the Elephant Trust Award and the Janome Fine Art Textiles Award (2021). Residencies include the Hari Hotel Art Prize Finalist Artist Residency (2023) and the New Order of Fashion Residency in Eindhoven (2022).
Her work has been featured in Embroidery Magazine, Art Maze Magazine, Crafts Magazine, and Handwerken Zonder Grenzen.
