Jemima Burrill: Room for Resistance

Humour, inappropriate behaviour, rebellion and compassion — this solo show by Jemima Burrill plays with the paradoxes of everyday life and strips the facade off established norms. What hides behind? Oh, just the usual oppression. What should you do with it? Choose to misbehave. The body can serve art — revealing what usually stays camouflaged. It can also be used to shake the viewer out of their comfy routines. The body can be dramatic, even while performing in a laid-back tone. It adapts to anything — and Jemima Burrill’s experiments make you feel that. There’s no comfort offered — but somehow, by the end, you’re left with a strange sense of relief. Ready to never see domestic space the same way again? Welcome to “Room for Resistance”. Your antidote to the mundane is already mixed — so simply dare to take it. Want to see the prescription? Fine. Here are a few quotes to help you get it. Brief, punk, loving, and savvy. The artist wants no preconceptions. “When people watch my films I want them to feel what they feel,” says Jemima. So we follow her lead. “I revel in joy and debasement.” The artist creates an aesthetic of compression and expansion. Burrill often works with visual and physical tension — squeezing, stuffing, stretching — metaphorically referencing the body’s ability to absorb, adapt to, or reject imposed roles. The body becomes pliable — and often absurd — a site of cultural negotiation. “I am preoccupied with inappropriate behaviour.” She’s not flirting when she says that. Her work disregards the lines between intimate and public space. It disarms you with something utterly unexpected — dropped right into recognisable, everyday scenes. “Make the mundane ridiculous,” says the artist — and she does. She exposes the true colours of cosy ignorance. Expected behaviours turn absurd. Casually, Jemima Burrill hands you a humorous rebellion against the formalities that veil everyday cruelty. “I am always pushing boundaries to create space for my protagonists.” And fair enough. Because for her characters, misbehaviour is liberation. Society doesn't welcome the chaos of freedom — it boxes us into tiny, scripted roles. And the artist? She pushes back. “Disposed boundaries of domestic space become significant.” Maybe you don’t notice domestic space while you’re inside it. Maybe it’s only a few softened gestures that make it feel like your body’s extension. Burrill sees much more in the domestic — kitchens, bathrooms, cleaning rituals — in her work, they reflect the ways bodies are trained, contained, and repurposed. “Womanhood is fighting my corner to ensure that I am heard.” The domestic becomes a stage — of control, yes, but also of resistance. Banal gestures become choreographies of meaning, revealing both joy and discomfort — as her female figures push against the roles that hold them down. “I look at how mothers, women, and girls make sense of the world.” Her work aligns with feminist performance traditions where the body isn’t a symbol — it’s a tool. A way to confront norms, perform contradictions, and open up new forms of embodiment, beyond the idealised or passive female figure. “Any Body Knows…that however strong you are, however good looking you are, it is what is between your ears that matters…” And saying that, Jemima Burrill gives you a solo show that 100% will reset your head.