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PAST EVENT

Artist Talk: Emii Alrai

  • Sue Hamer
  • Oct 17
  • 2 min read

Thursday 16th October 2025

Towner Eastbourne


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Images above and below show some of the work by Emii Alrai at Towner


Our October event was a collaboration with Towner, where we joined artist Emii Alrai as she discussed the ideas and processes that inform her most recent artworks and exhibitions.


Emii’s talk was followed by questions from the audience, moderated by Noelle Collins (Towner Exhibitions & Offsite Curator). The talk accompanies Emii Alrai’s exhibition at Towner from 26 July to 2 November 2025.

 

BMN would like to say a big thank you to Emii for so enthusiastically sharing her practice with us. Also, thank you to Emily & Noelle for organising and running the event. The exhibition continues until 2nd November


About Emii Alrai

Emii Alrai (b.1993, Blackpool) is an artist, writer and former museum registrar who lives and works between Leeds and London. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, Alrai’s practice explores Middle Eastern mythologies, archaeology and Western museum structures. 



Alrai uses a range of materials to create ruins and artefacts reminiscent of ancient civilisations. The weather-worn texture of eroded pillars and archways that she creates resembles stonework and structures uncovered at archaeological sites such as Pompeii in Italy or Jerash in Jordan. These large-scale ruins are fabrications, built in her studio, assembled in the gallery and furnished with earthenware pots, metal arrows, hand-blown glass vessels – false artefacts made by the artist. 



Through this work, Alrai engages critically with a Western tradition of museum display that prioritises the object. She invites us to think about collections, the origins of excavated artefacts and their close alignment with the reach of colonial empires. 



Solo exhibitions include River of Black Stone, Compton Verney, Warwickshire (2025); Lithics, Quench Gallery, Margate (2024); A Core of Scar, The Hepworth Wakefield & iniva (2022); and Reverse Defence, Workplace Foundation, Newcastle (2022). Recent group exhibitions include An Axis of Abstraction: Art in Cornwall and Yorkshire – Then and Now, Leeds Art Gallery; Drawing Attention: Emerging Artists in Dialogue, a British Museum touring exhibition (2023-2024); life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooo, CCA Glasgow (2024); A Permanent Departure for Nostalgia, A rehearsal on legacy with Zaha Hadid, Contemporary Arts Centre, Cincinnati, Ohio (2023).


Public collections include British Museum, London; Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds; Arts Council Collection, London; Government Art Collection, and The Hepworth Wakefield.



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