Dominique White: a Black future hasn’t happened yet, but must

The Max Mara Art Prize for Women presents Dominique White’s work Deadweight – found objects gleaned from shipyards, such as sails, ropes and chains, retracing Black Diaspora and human fragility

Dominique White, the Max Mara Art Prize for Women: through the sea it is possible to trace the history of human fragility

Since the beginning of human history, the sea has been a generator of myths, because of its evocative power and its ability as an element of lure and repulsion for humans. The sea is the element that has allowed humanity to connect but also to commit crimes between members of the same species. The seas have been used by empires – and still are – to trade human beings in what were slave trades between Africa, Europe and America. Through the sea it is possible to trace the history of human fragility.

«To me, the sea has always been an alternate world, an underworld, a spiritual realm and a site for the dead.

I used to speak often of the Kalunga line, where the horizon splits the living from the dead and I still find solace in the idea that perhaps my soul or spirit will return to spend eternity under the limitless waves, instead of being bound to a landmass». 

This is how artist Dominique White – born in 1993 and winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, a biennial prize for emerging female artists organized by Whitechapel Gallery, Max Mara Fashion Group and Collezione Maramotti –, speaks. The Max Mara Art Prize for Women is an initiative and collaboration between Max Mara, Whitechapel Gallery and Collezione Maramotti and is set up to support and nurture women-identifying artists in their career who have not previously had a major solo exhibition.

Deadweight – Dominique White winning the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, organized by Whitechapel Gallery, Max Mara Fashion Group and Collezione Maramotti

White’s winning proposal for the 9th edition of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women is for a new body of work entitled Deadweight, taking as its starting point the measure of deadweight tonnage – an official term used in the maritime industry that calculates how many units of weight a ship can take before it sinks. 

Comprising a series of large-scale sculptural installations, Deadweight builds on the artist’s philosophical interests in exploring and creating new worlds for ‘Blackness’, weaving together theories of Black Subjectivity, Afro-futurism and Hydrarchy. The term deadweight tonnage is a reference to a nautical measure. This term collapses everything on a ship, including cargo, passengers, crew and provisions, into a single unit, which determines the ship’s ability to float and function as intended. White frequently uses the concept of a ship as an analogy for statehood, arguing that without the ship, the Nation-State would not exist. 

«The sea is a site of impossibility, a flattening of time and a rejection of order. These are the ideas that my ongoing thesis, ‘Shipwreck(ed)’ (2018-) is rooted in, a practice rooted in ongoing mourning that has evolved into a revolt or rebellion against land. The sea is a site of more fantastical and unfathomable Afro-futures that reject the notions of the colonization of tangible matter (see: Elon Musk and his quest to colonize Mars vs the Black Planet) and a blurring of the definition of the Human or humanoid».

Dominique White about Afro-futurism: the redemption of human fragility

«Afro-futurism is like an impossible future. When I use the word impossible, I do not mean that it is impossible to achieve. It’s just impossible to imagine under the current constraints of society. It is something that goes completely against the current depiction of the future or ideals of capitalism, the nation state etc. It’s an undoing of all of that. It is not exactly like a utopia in its most traditional definition. I’d also challenge the use of the term science fiction when referring to Afro-futurism as it tends to imply a detachment from reality and is rooted solely in the speculative. We carve out smaller, possible Black futures on the daily just through our persistence to continue living and rebelling against the status quo».

With the work Deadweight, Dominique White collaborates with nautical institutions and metal-manufacturing factories such as Metalserbatoi

Deadweight combines found objects gleaned from shipyards, such as sails, ropes and chains, with clay to create sculptures that are both physical and ghostly. Throughout her residency, White undertook extensive research and developed new practical skills to inform the project. Working with a range of specialists and mentors, White visited nautical institutions and archives to extend her research on Mediterranean naval history, science and structural engineering, and past and present political contexts while working alongside historic foundries factories and artisan workshops to learn traditional and modern metalworking techniques. With Deadweight, White collaborated with Metalserbatoi – a company near Perugia specialized in iron and steel processing and manufacturing.  

Dominique White: human fragility versus the resilience of blackness. Rigid materials push bodies to their extreme

There’s anger when White produces her words, but it is also a result of using unruly and rigid materials. A certain tension, between vulnerability and brutality, something to do with human fragility versus the resilience of blackness. 

«I have worked with mahogany, one of the hardest woods to try to steam and bend. The force alone has ripped a lot of my fingernails out. Another example is working with iron. Physically, it is a solid material but, at the same time, it is soft and volatile to some extent. It is impossible to control everything that will happen when I am working with iron. You always have to expect the unexpected. I always say that I am a mediator of the materials, because there is only so much you can control. As a result, there can be anything from fractures or tears to work completely collapsing when there is too much pressure. I push things to their extreme. And in doing so, it pushes my body to its extreme».

Hydrachy and the Black Future of Black Diaspora. Dominique White on her practice and Human fragility

Seemingly fragile, yet highly physical, White’s practice focuses on nautical myths of the Black Diaspora. She redefines the term Shipwreck(ed) as a reflexive verb and state of being to embody the inherent abolition within her work. White’s sculptures, or ‘beacons’, recall sea-bound, imagined worlds which prophesize the emergence of the Stateless: «a Black future that hasn’t yet happened, but must».

Besides the term, Shipwreck(ed), Hydrachy is another term that is being used in relation to White’s work, describing the idea of the sea as the basis of power systems that are still in place today.

Hydrachy is a word from the 1600s, coined by the English poet Richard Braithwaite (1588–1673). It describes the ability to gain power and wealth through the instrument of water. Dominique White explores it in the inverse. «The idea is those deemed as cargo or with limited value (think pirates, runaway slaves, slaves

etc.) within the ship can overthrow the hierarchy on board and therefore destroy order on land. Hydrachy from below was a threat in the late 1600s and 1700s and I often wonder what the world would have been like if they had succeeded».

Dominique White’s practice behind her works. Soaking, submerging the iron

Entering Dominique White’s studio at the bottom of the medieval steps of San Fortunato in Todi, there is a smell of sea and rusted iron. «I’m nose blind, now», says White. She is unaware of the olfactory force of her works. Pieces of iron that have been soaked in water to achieve a patina of wear and tear.

«Throughout my practice, submerging the works has always been a romantic, unrealistic idea for the future of the works. It is the idea that if you put the majority of my practice back in the water, everything except for the iron and the wood would dissolve and disappear almost immediately. All that would be left would be these kinds of harpoons floating in the sea. I can’t do that. By submerging the iron, I am pushing the limitations of the work into this kind of unknown realm. Iron is used extensively in ports or next to the sea and you often see that, after 50–100 years of continuous exposure, the iron swells and develops this red, puffy surface. You cannot control what seawater does to iron once it is submerged».

The Max Mara Art Prize for Women – Whitechapel Gallery, Max Mara Fashion Group and Collezione Maramotti

The Max Mara Art Prize for Women is a biennial award for emergent female-identifying artists, originated and established in 2005 by Whitechapel Gallery and Max Mara Fashion Group. Collezione Maramotti, home to a world-class contemporary art collection, joined as an additional partner in 2007. 

The prize, which reflects Max Mara’s history of fostering close relationships between art, creativity, and women, promotes and nurtures women artists’ careers through increased visibility, as well as by offering the support and resources to develop a new work which is then presented at a solo exhibition.  It is open to female-identifying artists of any age, living and working in the United Kingdom, who have not previously had a major solo survey or exhibition. 

Dominique White and her work Deadweight

Dominique White (b. 1993, UK) is a British artist, living and working between Marseille and Essex. She is the winner of the ninth edition of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women (2022-2024). White presented Deadweight, a new body of work developed during a six-month residency organized by Collezione Maramotti in Italy.

Deadweight marks the artist’s first solo exhibition at a major London institution. It then travels to Collezione Maramotti in Italy, opening next October. 

Ario Mezzolani