Welcome to the audio-described highlights of the exhibition Fragment and Form: Emii Alrai, Mónica Mays, Dominique White. Fragment and Form explores the dialogue between history and materiality in sculpture through the work of three contemporary artists.

We've created three audio highlights: 'Without Ornamental Value' by Mónica Mays, 'the domination of Nothing' by Dominique White, and 'Mast Head, Half Flag' by Emii Alrai. Each recording is around three minutes long and includes descriptions of the artworks and poems created by Nadine El-Enany. The content has been produced by DesCript, a blind-led artwork description collective.

This recording also includes information about where to find the QR codes for the audio descriptions in the Sculpture Galleries at Henry Moore Institute.

Image: Entrance to the gallery with artwork inside Emii Alrai's 'Wallow’s Brace' 2025. Photo by Rob Harris.

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

(Transcript) Hello, my name is Joseph Rizzo Naudi and 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. 


Image: Mónica Mays 'Without Ornamental Value' 2024. Photo by Rob Harris.

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(Transcript) The domination of Nothing 2023 by Dominique White 

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 wall's 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? 


Image: Dominique White's 'The domination of Nothing' 2023. Photo by Rob Harris.

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(Transcript) Mast Head, Half Flag 2023 by Emii Alrai. 

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. 
A visual relationship to fragments of bone, 
a fossil or a fish. 


Image: Emii Alrai, 'Mast Head, Half Flag' 2023. Photo by Rob Harris.

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Hello and welcome to the audio-described highlights of Passing Strange: British Land Art Through Time. The exhibition explores the rich collection of British land art in Leeds Museums and Galleries’ Sculpture Collections, with work by Tacita Dean, Hamish Fulton, Anya Gallaccio, Andy Goldsworthy, John Hilliard and David Nash.

There are three audio descriptions, focusing on David Nash’s 'The Planted Works' 1977–92, Anya Gallaccio’s 'Six Dozen Red Roses' 1992 and Andy Goldsworthy’s 'Leaf Sculptures' 1988–1989. This content has been created by writer Kimberly Campanello in collaboration with blind-led artwork description collective DesCript.


Image: Entrance to Study Gallery, with artwork visible through the door: leaf sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy.

Introduction to Passing Strange: British Land Art Through Time

(Transcript) Five Drawings from The Planted Works 1977-1992 by David Nash. 

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 five drawings from The Planted Works 1977-1992 by David Nash. They're a display of five sketches made with charcoals and pastels, each on its own sheet of off-white drawing paper. They're all in landscape orientation and have been mounted together in a black-edged frame measuring 95cm tall by 75cm wide. Each sketch depicts a separate sculptural work created using living trees. 

The artist made these sculptures by training and fletching sapling trees to form an architectural space in the landscape near his home in North Wales. Each bears a handwritten title, as follows: 

Birches Leaning Out of Square 1992 
Serpentine Sycamores 1992 
Divided Oaks 1992 
Ash Dome 1992 
Oak Bowl 1992 

We asked the writer Kimberly Campanello to write a text based on an audio recording of a collaborative description conversation we held in front of these five drawings in the gallery. 

Kimberly’s text, entitled ‘Framing The Planted Works 1977-1992', describes the drawings in close, evocative detail, and is written from the perspective of someone listening to the audio recording of our collaborative description conversation. The text is about seven minutes long. 

- The full transcript is available on our website: https://henry-moore.org/whats-on/passing-strange-british-land-art-through-time/
- Image: David Nash, 'The Planted Works' 1977–1992. Courtesy Leeds Museums and Galleries (Leeds Art Gallery). Photo by Rob Harris.

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(Transcript) Six Dozen Red Roses 1992 by Anya Gallaccio. 

Hello, my name is Joseph Rizzo Naudi. I'm a blind writer and part of the artwork description collective DesCript. You're looking at Six Dozen Red Roses by Anya Gallaccio. It consists of a small black presentation box housing two cylindrical pastels or chalks, one a muddy red and the other a dull green. The box is made from matte black card and has its lid open to display the pastels. They nestle side by side on a bespoke black card insert. On the inside of the box's lid, an inscription printed in white ink reads: 

Red on Green 
10,000 red roses, large bloomed and fragrant. 
The heads pulled from their stems then placed side by side forming a dense cover over a rectangular bed of the stalks. 
The Nash Room, ICA, London. July 1992. 

Red and Green 
Two pastels, one red, one green made from the ground remains of six dozen of these roses. 

Below this paragraph is the artist's signature and their printed name, Anya Gallaccio. 

We asked the writer Kimberly Campanello to write a text based on a collaborative description conversation we held in front of this artwork. Kimberly’s text, called ‘Result of Six Dozen Red Roses, 1992’, reflects on the role of process, transformation and presentation in the creation of this artwork. The text is about two and a half minutes long. 


Result of Six Dozen Red Roses, 1992 

The result is found in this room, inside a lidded black box inside a waist high vitrine on a plinth. 

The result is in two pieces. 

The result’s two pieces are held inside the box’s specially formed spaces like a gift of expensive electronics, or a rare, though probably mass-produced specialty precious object. 

The resulting gift is two chalks, one mouldy green, one brown. They could be, but have not been, used for marking. Though one seems flaky, both are sleeved in see-through material. 

Such special treatment of a result results in at least one question. Where did the process begin to garner such packaged reverence? 

There are several possible responses. 

That numbers speak for themselves. As do materials. As does timing. As does location, both of making and displaying. And the name of the person doing the signing. 

I suggest we emphasise the artist’s self-made caption. A gift in itself. This language covering the lid of the box that holds this result’s two objects. 

Language. That mass-produced precious object. It flowers and decays as we go on specially sharing it. Though bound with transparent wrapping where we try to hold it, it is always possible it may mark others as it marks us. 

Mark these words. My interior changed through what has resulted. 


Image: Anya Gallaccio, 'Six Dozen Red Roses' 1992. Courtesy Leeds Museums and Galleries (Leeds Art Gallery). Photo by Rob Harris.

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(Transcript) Leaf Sculptures 1988–1989 by Andy Goldsworthy.
 
Hello, my name is Joseph Rizzo Naudi. I'm a blind writer and part of the artwork description collective DesCript. These are six small sculptural objects made from folded golden brown tree leaves fixed in place with thorns. They're displayed in two rows on a white plinth covered by a Perspex lid, 

located against the left-hand wall as you enter the gallery. 

 

Three of the objects are box-shaped. One takes the form of a standing cone, one is an oval ball shape with a narrow opening at the top, and one is shaped like a horn. The objects transform the natural materials of the leaves and thorns into uncanny shapes that invite touch but threaten to crumble. They are titled: 

Penpont Sycamore 1989 
Penpont Sycamore Summer 1988 
Drumlanrig Sweet Chestnut Summer 1989 
Yorkshire Sculpture Park Sweet Chestnut Summer 1988 
London Plane Leaves Summer 1988 
Drumlanrig Sweet Chestnut Summer 1989 

We asked the writer Kimberly Campanello to write a text based on a  collaborative description conversation we held in front of these artworks. Kimberly's text, called ' Troving leaf sculptures 1988-1989' closely describes the artworks, evoking the tactile allure of these delicate objects. The text is about four minutes long. 


Troving leaf sculptures, 1988-1989 

Galleried in the centre of the wall, tabernacled in glass, there are ritual objects, delicate, golden and pale as lace or pastry. I can only approach from the front or the sides. 

Front left is the most important, a hollow vessel made of leaves. It could never hold water. A cornucopia tempting a peek inside to see its way of making. Thorns pin folded leaves into coning swirls, toward a curling tip. Imagine rhizome tracks the horizontal and then up to create this, a fresh sucker. Considering this, I’m gone, transported and troving for a discovery, a finding in past times. A ram’s horn. Of course I always looked inside it or imagined drinking from it. This one’s curve recalls a mermaid seated on a rocky promontory, tail fountaining skyward to hold up the body. It’s the sort of thing I might shelve for future purposes, a wind instrument bending to sing of the leaves that make it. Imbricate plates roof a space for resonant feeling. 

I won’t smudge or break the glass, though I could palm two of the others: same materials, different directions and angles. Leaves form a cube small enough to hold in the hand but too large to cast. Its stems leg it upward from where they bind it. And to the right: another cube, its stems splaying like sinews branching outward the first time someone ever butchered. And behind that a large hat, golden and shimmering. And next to that, an open-topped sphere veined singly, you could hang it as a lantern from your ceiling. And then in front, a cube like a pinched box of tissues. A body breathing in, it hovers on the stems that made it. 

I so want to touch these, but if I did, I could destroy them. 

Ah! Just then which is now, someone sneezes. 

And then. And now. Bless you. Bless you. 

These once-green dried leaves require special handlers. There are cracks on several individuals and broken edges. All were made during my first few summers. 

Someone here remembers them changing colours. 

Image: Andy Goldsworthy, 'Leaf Sculptures' 1988–1989. Courtesy Leeds Museums and Galleries (Leeds Art Gallery). Photo by Rob Harris.

(AD) Andy Goldsworthy, 'Leaf Sculptures' 1988–1989

The Henry Moore Foundation was founded by the artist and his family in 1977 to encourage public appreciation of the visual arts. We run two venues, in Leeds and Hertfordshire, showing a mix of Moore’s own work and other sculpture.

Our aim is to make a hub for sculpture, connecting a global network of artists and scholars, continuing research into the art form and ensuring that sculpture is accessible and celebrated by a wide audience.