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Please note there is a wedding taking place on site tomorrow, Sat 30 Aug, this will affect access to some of our areas during the day, please see signage around the site for more details.

Exhibitions

Emii Alrai
RIVER OF BLACK STONE

15 February - 15 June 2025

About the
Exhibition

Inspired by the disruptive nature of volcanic eruption and the paintings of Vesuvius in our Naples collection, Emii Alrai wove together ancient mythologies, research and nostalgia as a critical response to the times.

Visitors could explore a sequence of immersive rooms referencing the romanticism of great voyages and discoveries of the past.

In this exhibition of new and reimagined works, sculptural objects became artefacts and drawings became mosaics bringing together textures, images and voice, turning the galleries into a theatre of the past, lit by the match of imagination.

About
Emii Alrai

Emii Alrai (b.1993) is an artist, ex-museum registrar and writer. Alrai’s work investigates memory, critiques the western museological structure and explores the complexity of ruins. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, her work operates as large-scale realms built in relation to bodies of research concerning archaeology and the natural environments objects are excavated from.

Emii Alrai River of Black Stone, Installation View © Compton Verney and Jamie Woodley