Emii Alrai's work spans material investigation in relation to memory, critique of the western museological structure and the complexity of ruins. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, her work operates as large-scale realms built in relation to bodies of research which concern archaeology and the natural environments objects are excavated from. Her practice weaves in oral histories, inherited nostalgia and the details of language to question the rigidity of Empire and the power of hierarchy to interpolate the static presence of history. The installations physically weave together hand built clay vessels which are patinated to look like ancient artefacts, steel braces and polystyrene hewn into amorphous landscapes.
Emii Alrai (b.1993, Blackpool, UK) lives and works in Leeds, UK. Alrai received her MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies, Distinction, University of Leeds in 2018 and her BA Fine Art (International), First Class Honours, University of Leeds in 2015.
Recent solo exhibitions include Capture, Towner Eastbourne, UK (2025); River of Black Stone, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK (2025); A Lake as Great as its Bones, Maximillian William, London, UK (2024); Lithics, Quench Gallery, Margate, UK (2024); A Core of Scar, The Hepworth Wakefield & iniva, Wakefield, and London, UK (2022); Reverse Defence, Workplace Foundation, Newcastle, UK (2022). Previous group exhibitions include Fragment & Form, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK (2025); Déjà Vu, Bold Tendencies, London, UK (2025), Ceramics Friends: 5th Virginia McClure Ceramic Biennale, McClure Gallery, Montréal, Canada (2024); A Permanent Departure for Nostalgia, A Rehearsal on Legacy with Zaha Hadid, Contemporary Arts Centre, Cincinnati, USA (2023); And the Mirrors are Many, Warehouse 421, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (2022).
Alrai was the recipient of the Assetto Fellowship at the Warburg Institute in 2025, Knotenpunkt Artist Award, Hamburg, Germany in 2024, GOG Galleries of Ontario Award, Exhibition of the Year for Sutures and shortlisted for the Frieze Artwork Award in 2023, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award in 2020. She was artist-in-residence at Wysing Arts Centre, UK in 2024 and she has undertaken residencies at the Villa Medici, Rome, Italy, Launchpad LaB, France in 2023; and Triangle Astérides, Marseille, France in 2021.
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Emii Alrai: A Core of Scar | Hepworth Wakefield
Emii Alrai (b.1993) discusses her new commission 'A Core of Scar' at The Hepworth Wakefield.
Alrai, who lives in Leeds and has a studio in Wakefield, creates works and installations that subvert the traditional visual language of museum displays. Alrai weaves together ancient mythologies from the Middle East and oral histories from her own Iraqi heritage in objects which imitate archaeological artefacts. Alrai’s work draws attention to the contrast between the polished aesthetics of museums and the states of ruin which befall archaeological objects and the landscapes they are excavated from.
For The Hepworth Wakefield, Alrai has created a series of hand-blown glass vessels that evoke ancient funerary urns. The vessels are marked by scars and seams, which emerge from the making processes of casting and joining. In archaeological artefacts, such scars can hint at the violence of the object’s separation from its homeland – a separation that parallels experiences of migration and diaspora.
These glass vessels are shown together with engravings from Wakefield’s collection of historic Yorkshire landscapes, depicting gorges and scars formed by melting glaciers. In these distinctive and dramatic landscapes, Alrai finds affinities with bodily scars, which were once open wounds. Alrai’s commission investigates these physical markers of the past, weaving together body, landscape and object as sites of memory. Photographs, sketches and small sculptural objects will also be displayed to reveal Alrai’s research and creative process in developing the commission.
Alrai was selected by curators at iniva and The Hepworth Wakefield for the second year of Future Collect, owing to her sensitivity in navigating complex diasporic narratives and her imaginative exploration of materials. The commission will be acquired into Wakefield’s permanent art collection. Future Collect is iniva’s three-year programme aimed at transforming the future of public art collections across the UK to better reflect our culturally diverse society.
Future Collect is supported by Art Fund, Arts Council England and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
Film by Christopher Vickers
