Friends Angelina Volk and Leopold Thun launched this gallery a week after they handed in their university dissertations in 2016. Its opening show was a functioning sauna by Lithuanian artist Augustus Serapinas – who went on to become the youngest ever exhibitor at the Venice Biennale. Emalin now has two Shoreditch outposts (inside a former locksmith shop near Bethnal Green and, since 2024, in the 18th-century Clerk’s House); both are a must-visit on an east London art trail.


