Deadweight
Deadweight, by London-based sculptor, Dominique White, is a dream manifested into reality. As the seventh winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, White explores themes of migration and identity through sculptures and ceramics influenced by seafaring mythologies. The installation reflects on the Atlantic's complex history, blending elements of loss, transformation, and Black diasporic narratives.
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High St, London, E1 7QX. Runs through September 15th, 2024
Exhibition Description
"A thought-provoking exploration of rebellion and transformation, Deadweight comprises four large-scale sculptural works which continue the artist’s interest in creating new worlds for ‘Blackness’ and fascination with the metaphoric potency and regenerative power of the sea. The title Deadweight derives from a nautical term which collapses everything on a ship into a single unit which determines the ship’s ability to float and function as intended. White deliberately inverts this, offering disruption as opposed to stability – a reckoning with the tipping point of the ship to offer the possibility of emancipation through abolition. The works combine force and fragility: undulating angular structures formed from metals manipulated into forms evocative of anchors, a ship’s hull, mammal carcasses or skeletons – lost or abandoned material forms that, through White’s treatment, become symbols of defiance." -Excerpt from Press Release.