Fragment and Form: Emii Alrai, Mónica Mays, Dominique White

18 July – 2 November 2025

Sculpture Galleries

Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

Free Entry

Detail of an abstract sculpture, with burned materials and rusty chicken wire at the centre, with rusted metal bars bent around it.

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Free Entry

A white relief sculpture on board, in two parts.

A very tall series of taxonomical boxes, filled with silkworm cocoons.

Abstract sculpture, tubular in form, bending from the floor to a wall somewhat like a pipe or a root. It is made in sections with different materials, including stone, iron, palm tree, wood salvaged from furniture, and miscellaneous pieces from abandoned factories.

Two long, abstract sculptures suspended from rusted winches near the ceiling of a gallery. They are long and tubular in form, tapering where they rest on the concrete floor. They made in sections with different materials, including stone, iron, palm tree, wood salvaged from furniture, and miscellaneous pieces from abandoned factories.

Abstract sculpture made from white kaolin clay coating coarse raffia fibres, hanging from an iron gambrel attached to a wall.

Sculpture made from a driftwood log, with four long, rusted metal spikes extending up and out from it in long, fluid curves resembling a breaking wave.

Detail of an abstract sculpture, with burned materials and rusty chicken wire at the centre, with rusted metal bars bent around it. The tip of a rusty harpoon lies on the floor just in front of it.

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 depictions to the use of industrial and found materials more recently, sculptors have chosen materials not merely for their physical properties, but for their ability to deepen meaning and embody cultural, political, and spiritual narratives.

Fragment and Form will continue 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.

The notion of history being both formed and fragmented resonates throughout the exhibition, finding parity in the artists’ material choices which so often serve as a metaphor for the complexities of representing history itself.

About the artists

Emii Alrai

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 forged artefacts are often presented as decaying and deteriorating through her material explorations of forgery.

Through these installations, Alrai critically examines museum curation and the romanticised ways histories are told and displayed.

Mónica Mays

Mónica Mays (b.1990) is a multidisciplinary artist whose sculptural installations bring together found objects and organic materials to explore the entangled forces of care, labour and control.

Her suspended forms combine charred ceramics, vellum and beeswax with factory debris, school furniture and obsolete domestic fragments, often evoking a sense of bodily vulnerability. These materials reference combustion, regulation and extractive labour, whether through the exploitation of bodies or the commodification of nature.

Across her practice, Mays explores how experiences of intimacy and attention are shaped by wider systems of power, bringing the personal into contact with broader social and political forces.

Dominique White

Dominique White (b.1993) is a British artist whose sculpture and installation work explores diaspora, Black identity and Afrofuturism.

Drawing on myth, history and speculative fiction, she creates sculptures resembling remnants of a sunken world, using materials such as rope, metal, palm fronds and shells. 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 the Middle Passage, bridging themes of survival, rebirth and shifting identities, while harnessing a concern for materiality to symbolise both decay and transformation, ultimately pointing to a reimagined, liberated future.