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

Hello and welcome to the audio-described highlights of the exhibition Fragment and Form: Emii Alrai, Mónica Mays, Dominique White. My name is Joseph Rizzo Naudi. I’m a blind writer and part of the artwork description collective DesCript. Fragment and Form explores the dialogue between history and materiality in sculpture through the work of three contemporary artists.

There are three audio descriptions available, each focusing on one artist’s work. These were written by Nadine El-Enany and produced by DesCript, a blind-led artwork description collective.

To access them, scan the QR codes next to the artwork labels, using your phone or borrowing a device from the Welcome Desk. The QR codes are on yellow square stickers, about 8cm wide by 10cm long, with black text reading ‘AD: scan for audio description’.

You are now in the first gallery. Behind you is Wallow’s Brace by Emii Alrai, a turquoise, pottery-like piece held by a metal armature mounted on a textured terracotta-colour wall.

Opposite this work is a wall text. To your left is a sculpture by Dominique White, made of driftwood, rusted iron and rope.

Turn around and follow the wall on your right. As you pass Crossing, another work made by Emii Alrai, you’ll reach the first described artwork, Without Ornamental Value, by Mónica Mays. The QR code is located on the left-hand side of the stairs behind the work.

As you exit the room and enter the second gallery, in the centre is the second described work, The domination of Nothing, by Dominique White. It’s a large, dark sculpture, which looks like a burned shipwreck. The charcoal-black colour of the work contrasts with the bright white walls and natural light from the ceiling. The QR code is on the left side of the large windows behind the work, next to the label.

After exiting the room and as you enter the third gallery, at the far back is the third described artwork, Mast Head, Half Flag, by Emii Alrai, a semi-abstract sculpture on two large wooden boards. The QR code is next to the label, on the right side of the work.

If you need any assistance, please ask the information assistants in the galleries. Braille and large print versions of the exhibition texts are available from the Welcome Desk, just outside the galleries. Please do not touch the works on display.

Thank you and we hope you enjoy the exhibition.

Hello, my name is Joseph Rizzo Naudi. I’m a blind writer and part of the artwork description collective DesCript.

You’re in front of a large sculpture by Mónica Mays called Without Ornamental Value. It’s made up of an assemblage of found objects and organic materials. From the gallery ceiling, a beige-coloured, tapering form, about two and a half metres long, hangs over an old wooden school desk. Emerging from the form’s lower end, a thick bunch of dark, hair-like strands somehow penetrate the top of the desk and continues downward to spread in a Y-shaped form, roughly a metre long, on the light-coloured gallery floor.

The materials are: palm wax, palm fibre, a school desk, steel, canvas, vellum, and the resins, damar, myrrh and kemenyan.

We asked the writer Nadine El-Enany to write a poem based on a collaborative description conversation we held in front of the artwork. Her poem, called ‘A language that is not English’, describes the sculpture in detail and gives a vivid sense of its presence in the gallery. The poem is about a minute and a half long.

A language that is not English

It’s a sad kind of light,
like a house in daytime, the curtains drawn.

The feeling is warm, the light yellow,
sinister like inside a cave.

The smell of the room is the colour brown.
Its shape square, the sculpture in the centre.

It hangs from the ceiling by a rusty chain,
it’s beige, fleshy, eight feet long,

rugged, bruised, bumpy terrain.
It looks like a limb, part of a leg,

parsnip, stalactite, rotisserie kebab.
It’s skin that’s sick, sweet smell.

At its slimmer end, hair protrudes,
punctures an old school desk.

Found object. Graffiti. So and so loves.
Tipp-Ex. A language that is not English.

The hair tumbles out the other side.
Dense, matted, dark and frayed.

Like the tail of a mermaid made of hair,
knotted and splayed across the gallery floor.

Hello, my name is Joseph Rizzo Naudi. I’m a blind writer and part of the artwork description collective DesCript.

You’re in front of a large, floor-based sculpture called The domination of Nothing by Dominique White. This dark, tangled, skeletal sculpture stretches roughly four meters along the gallery floor and is about two and a half meters tall and two and a half meters wide. Its charred form contrasts starkly with the bright white walls, light grey floor and the natural light that enters through the gallery’s double-height windows. The sculpture is assembled from rusted wrought iron, sisal, destroyed sail, burnt mahogany and high-volatile charcoal.

We asked the writer Nadine El-Enany to write a poem based on a collaborative description conversation we held in front of the artwork. The poem, called ‘Something bad happened here’ closely describes the sculpture, constructing it phase by phase as if the artwork were being made in front of us. The poem is about a minute and a half long.

Something bad happened here

If you were to take a cool light and make it blue
like stepping outside or into the sea

if you were to make a plaster cast of a buoy,
dye it black, shatter and shove it
into giant cloth covered chicken wire nests,
three hooped skeletons, the rest burned away

if you were to take an old sailing rope,
unravel it, unravel it and stick it in here,
rope, twine, wire mesh,
fabric from a sail falling to the floor

if you were to take four Mahogany harpoons,
curved and blackened shafts, barbs on their heads
so they can’t come out again
(all Mahogany is old; trees felled by African slaves)

if you were to set fire to it, submerge it
like a shipwreck found on the seabed, imagine
there was more debris carried away by wind and rain,
a scattering of charcoal remains

if you were to cover, cover your tracks,
move the matter to an evidence locker
if you were to be sad and angry at the same time
the quiet exhaustion after violence

if you were to come back here next year
would you be surprised to find this gone?

Hello, my name is Joseph Rizzo Naudi. I’m a blind writer and part of the artwork description collective DesCript.

On the wall in front of us is Mast Head, Half Flag, a sculpture by Emii Alrai.

This artwork is made of two dark brown plywood boards, about the same size and shape as household doors, mounted side by side to form a square. There’s a gap of about an inch between them, through which we glimpse a thin white strip of gallery wall. The board’s dark surfaces display a whitish plaster form, sculpted in low relief. It spreads its irregular, curving way towards the four corners of the square created by the plywood boards.

The materials used to make this piece are: plywood, hay, straw, metal wire, gypsum, hops, jute and pewter nails.

We asked the writer Nadine El-Enany to write a poem based on a collaborative description conversation we held in front of this artwork. Her poem, called ‘It maps my body, a body’, describes the sculpture as it appears in the gallery space, and suggests a number of possible interpretations for that indeterminate plaster form. The poem is about a minute long.

It maps my body, a body

Dark wood door-size panels, mounted on the wall,
side-by-side, portrait, a thumbprint apart.
Stained a reddish hue, mahogany, dark chocolate.
Shiny, the glare of gallery lights.

Aerial view of a white plaster island
spanning the panels. A mountain range
slapped on, seasoned with sawdust. A hole makes a lake.
Four large nails keep the peaks in place.

A map split in two, or a reclining figure.
Soft limb island, lost from the main.
A face, looking away, upwards to the right,
silhouette of a nose and chin.

A map that isn’t understood.
It maps my body, a body.
Fragments of bone,
a fossil or a fish.