Fragment and Form: Emii Alrai, Mónica Mays and Dominique White
Sculpture Galleries, Henry Moore Institute
18 July – 2 November 2025
Free entry
The relationship between history, myth and materiality has been a central concern throughout the evolution of sculpture.
From the enduring qualities of marble in classical statuary and architecture to the use of industrial and found materials in more recent practice, sculptors chose materials not merely for their physical properties, but for their ability to deepen meaning and embody cultural, political and spiritual narratives.
Fragment and Form continues the dialogue between history and materiality in sculpture through the work of three contemporary artists: Emii Alrai, Mónica Mays and Dominique White. While distinct, the work of each artist converges in the exploration of heritage, displacement and the ways in which personal and collective histories are preserved, marginalised and contested through materiality. We bear witness to the formation and fragmentation of history throughout the exhibition, in a notion that resonates through the artists’ material choices which often serve as a metaphor for the complexities of representing the passage of time.
Emii Alrai (b.1993) is a British-Iraqi artist whose work delves into themes of heritage, nostalgia, and the colonial legacy of looted artefacts. Through large-scale sculptural installations that mimic archaeological ruins and ancient monuments, she reimagines museum objects using plaster, clay and metal. These artefacts are often presented as decaying and deteriorating through her material explorations of forgery. Alrai uses these installations to critically examine museum curation and the romanticised ways histories are told and displayed.
Mónica Mays (b.1990) is a Spanish artist whose work is concerned with themes of cultural identity, memory and materiality, often through the lens of domestic objects and everyday rituals. Mays creates sculptures, installations and assemblages that blend organic materials with found objects, evoking a sense of fragmented history and personal mythology. Her work reflects on the histories of colonialism, labour and migration, imbuing humble, familiar items with layers of cultural significance and memory. By merging craft traditions with conceptual strategies, Mays reconsiders the roles of material culture and forgotten narratives in shaping contemporary identity.
Dominique White (b.1993) is a British artist whose sculpture and installation work explores abolition, Black identity and Afrofuturism. Drawing on myth, history and speculative fiction, she creates sculptures resembling remnants of a sunken world, using materials such as worn rope, iron, destroyed sails, kaolin and charcoal. Typically weathered or corroded, her materials mirror tools of the nation-state, symbolising resilience as well as the deterioration of systems of power. White’s work speaks to abolitionist ideals, linking the destruction of oppressive systems to new possibilities. Her sculptures reference nautical disasters, bridging themes of survival, decategorisation and shifting identities, while harnessing a concern for materiality to symbolise both decay and transformation, ultimately pointing to a reimagined, liberated future.
Including new and recent work, the exhibition opens with a new sculptural intervention by Emii Alrai that transforms the architecture of the Institute’s galleries, reorienting the viewer’s experience. Alrai’s installations function as speculative reconstructions of displaced or looted artefacts, fabricated with materials such as plaster, clay and metal. Through this gesture, and sculpture fragments that punctuate the galleries, Alrai critiques museum display and the hierarchies of preservation that shape dominant historical narratives.
The exhibition includes an expansive new installation of Mónica Mays’ Shadow Boxes — wall-mounted assemblages that resemble taxonomy drawers filled with cocoons, flower-dyed silks and brass fittings. These delicately composed works evoke both scientific collection and intimate ritual, exploring suspended transformation, preservation and the fragility of inherited memory. Mays’ recent Long Limbs Pump Abductors Ashes to Ashes 2024 and Without Ornamental Value 2024 are also included.
On display in the Institute’s central gallery is Dominique White’s The Domination of Nothing 2023, a skeletal sculpture assembled from charred mahogany, volatile charcoal, destroyed sails and rusted iron. Conjuring the remnants of a wrecked vessel or collapsed lobster cages, it reflects themes of absence, refusal and collapse. Accompanied by two further sculptures installed in the exhibition, a flag of victory, a trophy of defeat 2019 and a beast of burden 2024. These works speak to the destruction necessary for the imagining of a liberated future, extending White’s ongoing exploration of resilience and Afrofuturism.
Fragment and Form invites viewers to consider how sculpture can interrogate the legacies of power and historical erasure while celebrating the distinct ways each artist responds to these concerns. The exhibition is a space for reflection on how material culture can both preserve and challenge historical narratives, and how the legacy of colonialism continues to shape the objects we value and the stories we tell about the past.
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Notes to editors
About the artists
Emii Alrai (b.1993) lives and works in the UK. Solo exhibitions include River of Black Stone, Compton Verney 2025; A Lake as Great as its Bones, Maximillian William 2024; Lithics, Quench Gallery, Margate 2024; A Core of Scar, The Hepworth Wakefield & iniva, 2022; Reverse Defence, Workplace Foundation, Newcastle, 2022.
Previous group exhibitions include Ceramics Friends: 5th Virginia McClure Ceramic Biennale, McClure Gallery, Montréal; A Permanent Departure for Nostalgia, A rehearsal on legacy with Zaha Hadid, Contemporary Arts Centre, Cincinnati 2023; And The Mirrors are Many, Warehouse 421, Abu Dhabi, 2022. Alrai is the 2025 recipient of the Assetto Fellowship at the Warburg Institute and was artist in residence at Wysing Arts Centre, 2024. Alrai has undertaken residencies at the Villa Medici in Rome, 2023; Launchpad LaB, 2023; Triangle Astérides, 2021.
Alrai’s work is held in public collections including the British Museum, London; Leeds Art Gallery; Arts Council Collection, London; the Government Art Collection, UK and The Hepworth Wakefield.
Mónica Mays (b.1990) lives and works between Madrid and Amsterdam. Having studied Cultural Anthropology at the University of New Orleans, she graduated from the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg in 2015 and received an MA from the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam in 2017.
She has developed projects in artistic residencies such as Rupert (Vilnius), Matadero (Madrid) or Cemeti Institut for Art and Society (Yogyakarta, Indonesia). Her works have been exhibited in spaces such as Arti et Amicitiae (Amsterdam), Tallinn Art Hall (Tallinn), KUBUS (Hannover), Goethe Institut (Bucarest), Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen (Netherlands) or La Casa Encendida (Madrid).
This year she was awarded the Arco Art Prize and her work was acquired by notable institutions such as Reina Sofia Museum, CA2M or Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. Other awards include the 3PD prize bestowed by the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts 2022, the Mondriaan Fonds Young Talent 2023, and the Generation 2022 prize from the Montemadrid Foundation.
Dominique White (b. UK) mostly lives in Marseille (FR) and Essex (GB) and works nomadically. Recent solo and duo exhibitions include: Cinders of the Wreck at Visual Carlow (IE) 2025, Deadweight at Whitechapel Gallery (GB) 2024, Destruction of Order at veda (IT) 2024 and Dominique White and Alberta Whittle: Sargasso Sea at ICA Philadelphia (US) 2024.
Recent group exhibitions include: La Haute Note Jaune at Fondation Vincent van Gogh (FR) 2024-5, AMONG THE INVISIBLE JOINS: Works from the Enea Righi Collection at Museion (IT) 2024–5 and Phantom Sculpture at Warwick Arts Centre (GB) 2023–4.
White was the winner of the 9th edition of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women (GB/IT) 2022–24 and CURA magazine has chosen her as one of the most significant artists of the current generation. She was also awarded the Foundwork Artist Prize (US) at the beginning of 2023 and was in residency at Sagrada Mercancía (CL), Triangle France – Astérides (FR) and La Becque (CH) in 2020 and 2021.
About Henry Moore Institute
Henry Moore Institute welcomes everyone to visit their galleries, research library and archive of sculptors’ papers to experience, enjoy and research sculpture from around the world. The newly refurbished Institute can be found in the centre of Leeds, the city where Henry Moore (1898–1986) began his training as a sculptor. Their changing programme of historical, modern and contemporary exhibitions and events encourage thinking about what sculpture is, how it is made and the artists who make it.
As part of the Henry Moore Foundation, they are a hub for sculpture, connecting a global network of artists and scholars, continuing research into the art form and ensuring that sculpture is accessible and celebrated by a wide audience.
The long-established partnership of Leeds City Council and the Henry Moore Foundation began with the development of the Sculpture Study Centre in Leeds Art Gallery in 1982 and led to the development of the Henry Moore Institute in 1993. It now represents an unparalleled collaboration in the collection, study and presentation of sculpture. The Leeds Sculpture Collections lies at the heart of their work together, underpinned by the complimentary research and curatorial expertise of both organisations.
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About the Henry Moore Foundation
The Henry Moore Foundation was founded by the artist and his family in 1977 to encourage public appreciation of the visual arts.
Today we support innovative sculpture projects, devise an imaginative programme of exhibitions and research worldwide, and preserve the legacy of Moore himself: one of the great sculptors of the 20th century, who did so much to bring the art form to a wider audience.
We run two venues, in Leeds and Hertfordshire, showing a mix of Moore’s own work and other sculpture.
We also fund a variety of sculpture projects through our Henry Moore Grants and Research programmes and we have a world-class collection of artworks which regularly tour both nationally and internationally.
A registered charity, we award grants to arts organisations around the world, with a mission to bring great sculpture to as many people as possible.