Sarah Casey: Negative Mass Balance
Study Gallery, Henry Moore Institute
4 April – 22 June 2025
Free entry
Henry Moore Institute presents Negative Mass Balance, a new display by British artist Sarah Casey, exploring the fragile state of glacial archaeology through delicate, atmospheric work inspired by objects emerging from ice in the Swiss Alps.
Taking its title from the scientific term for receding glaciers, Negative Mass Balance reflects on the unprecedented melting of alpine ice, which reveals ancient artefacts preserved for millennia. These discoveries provide rare insights into the past but also signify environmental change and uncertain futures.
Through drawing and sculpture, Casey examines these tensions, merging techniques of making and erasure, space and solidity. Her work investigates what is lost, what is revealed, and the shifting boundaries between human history and geological time.
Work in the display
The display will include new work conceived when Casey was a visiting fellow at the Institute and developed through a residency at Musée d’Art du Valais, Switzerland in 2023, where she worked with Swiss archaeologists from the cantons of Valais and Bern, and a second residency with the Sion based group Le Cairn in 2024.
Emergency! What Was Is (2024–2025)
Two large suspended drawings made from wax, paper, and glacial flour – the fine rock sediment left behind as glaciers retreat.
These translucent works subtly move with air currents, allowing light to pass through in ever-changing ways, echoing the landscapes that inspired them.
Vulnerable to heat, they embody the same fragility as the glaciers themselves.
Ablations
Six prints of Casey’s heat-sensitive drawings placed in the landscape in the Swiss Alps, which capture views that are rapidly disappearing due to climate change.
Ice Watch series
Three miniature works on glass watch faces, each painted with glacial flour collected in the Alps. At just 5cm in diameter, these intricate pieces depict landscapes that may never be seen again.
Accompanying exhibitions and events
The display is accompanied by a conference: Forces of Nature: New Perspectives on Art and Changing Environments will be held at Henry Moore Institute on Wednesday 21 May 2025. Coinciding with the exhibitions SUNLIGHT: Roger Ackling and Sarah Casey: Negative Mass Balance, on display at the Institute, the event will explore artists’ engagement with climate, as well as the creative and destructive forces of nature.
Sarah Casey is also curating the Research Library’s display From Dawn to Dust on the first floor of the Institute, which will open on 4 April 2025. Casey has selected items from the Archive of Sculptors’ Papers which complement the themes in the Institute’s exhibitions SUNLIGHT: Roger Ackling and Sarah Casey: Negative Mass Balance. Items relating to artists including Catherine Bertola, Helen Chadwick, Roger Ackling, Keir Smith and Andy Goldsworthy will be on display exploring the ephemeral materiality of time, natural processes and the environment.
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Notes to editors
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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Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–17:00
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.
Sarah Casey
Sarah Casey (b.1979) is Professor of Fine Art and its Histories at Lancaster University, UK. She studied History of Art with History and Philosophy of Science before studying Fine Art at postgraduate level.
As well as her fellowship at Henry Moore Institute, she has been awarded residences in the UK and overseas, including Royal Drawing School Scottish Artist in Residence (2021), Ryerson Fashion Research Collection Toronto (2017) and Musée d’ Art du Valais (2023). In 2024 she won the John Muir Trust Creative Freedom Prize for 3D work and the William Littlejohn Award from Royal Scottish Academy.
Henry Moore Institute Visiting Research Fellowships
Each year we offer several visiting research fellowships to academics, curators and artists, and provide accommodation, travel and subsistence expenses for a month.
This allows fellows to take time out to dedicate to furthering their sculpture research using the resources at Henry Moore Institute and ensures that cutting-edge investigations into the art form continues.