NOW Gallery hosts new installation Maiden Voyage by JeeYoung Lee

© Charles Emerson

The art commission runs from 23 June to 25 September at the gallery in Greenwich Peninsula, London.

NOW Gallery‘s latest installation comes from South Korean multi-disciplinary artist and designer JeeYoung Lee. Entitled Maiden Voyage the piece comprises a forest of 400 hand-crafted hanging ginkgo leaves with paper aeroplanes and a boat floating through.

The installation captures Lee’s childhood memories and invites visitors to draw on their own thoughts and memories. Visitors can write down their first memory on a piece of origami paper and fold it into a swan. Over the course of the exhibition these will be collected throughout the installation and contribute to a performance at NOW Later on 12 July.

Speaking on the piece, Lee said, “The idea came to me when I saw the streets covered with ginkgo tree leaves in fall. Autumn is a season that foretells that the year is about to end and the fallen and coloured leaves announce the passage of time. Our lives are filled with various adventures both big and small. I wanted to express these adventures in the form of a boat sailing through everyday life, as if travelling through the mundane toward that something, somewhere, gradually getting to that goal little by little.”

NOW Gallery has previously hosted exhibitions by Molly Goddard, Yinka Ilori, Manjit Thapp and Nicholas Daley. They also recently held Joy Yamusangie’s Feeling Good. Read our interview with Yamusangie on jazz clubs, gender euphoria and her art here.

See photos of the Maiden Voyage installation below.

Photos by Charles Emerson