Tutelaries I

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

Emii Alrai is interested in how European or ‘Western’ museums show historical artefacts from other cultures. A key interest in her work is in exploring how this impacts on identities of both, the nations who display these objects and the diaspora from West Asia or the ‘Middle East,’ where many of the artefacts she is interested in originate. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, Alrai draws on her earlier experiences as a museum registrar in Britain, when she regularly handled such works, to fabricate her own versions of artefacts and museum displays. She realises these as installations that speak to an inherited nostalgia, exploring new viewpoints around memory, around the objects themselves, their places of origin, and where they have come to rest. She often juxtaposes the pristine conditions of their display with imagined backdrops of the ruins from which they were removed. Her practice critiques the western museological structure and questions ideas of Empire, the power of hierarchies and the established narratives of history.

Emii Alrai was born in Blackpool and received her BFA from the University of Leeds, which included a year at the École Supérieure d’art et de design Marseille-Méditerranée in France. She went on to an MA in Gallery and Museum studies, also at Leeds, graduating in 2018. She has had solo exhibitions at The Grundy, Blackpool (2023); The Hepworth Wakefield; Iniva, London; Eastside Projects, Birmingham (all 2022); Threshold, Leeds (2021); Jerwood Arts, London (2021) and The Tetley at Leeds 2020). Her work has been included in group exhibitions most recently at the Centre of Contemporary Art Glasgow (2024); Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton (2023); Contemporary Arts Centre, Cincinnati, US (2023); Bluecoat, Liverpool (2022); McIntosh Gallery, Western University, Ontario, Canada; and Assembly Point, London (2021).

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

ink, steel, sculpture (as object name), mixed media sculpture, copper leaf, clay

Artist

Emii Alrai (1993 - )

Title

Tutelaries I

Date

2021

Medium

3 clay, copper leaf, oxides and ink vessels and steel armature

Dimensions

(Display case) height: 69 cm; width: 72.6 cm; depth: 28 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from The Amber Room by Rosie Reed, August 2022

Provenance

The artist; from whom purchased by The Amber Rooms' by Rosie Reed; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 18 August 2022

GAC number

19105