In Conversation: Emii Alrai and Tanoa Sasraku

The event starts in the gallery with a talk by Hammad Nasar, the curator of Listening to the earth. Conversations between exhibiting artists Emii Alrai and Tanoa Sasraku and anthropologist Professor Haidy Geismar and environmental historian Dr Robert Suits will be followed by a round table chaired by Professor Jagjeet Lally and a Q&A session. Produced in collaboration with UCL Anthropocene, the UCL Centre for Transnational and Global History and the Paul Mellon Centre.

Emii Alrai uses material investigation to explore new ways to discover our past. Works on paper and in clay were generated through ongoing research into the medieval practice of heart burial, which dates back to the Crusades (1096–1291) and involved removing hearts from the body and sending them back home for burial or, for those unable to join battle, sending them to Jerusalem. Haidy Geismar is a social anthropologist with research interests in intellectual and cultural property, indigenous rights and colonial histories and legacies, new forms of cultural representation, the anthropology of art and critical museology.

Tanoa Sasraku’s contribution to Listening to the earth continues her interrogation of death and the body through the processes of oil extraction and garment construction. Pursuing her interest in the narrative possibilities of natural materials the exhibition includes a Terratype – made by hand-rubbing earth pigments – and works in a range of media that explore crude oil and that speak to the disposability of bodies and the cost of war to life, human and more-than-human. Robert Suits is a Lecturer in Environmental History at UCL whose work focuses on energy, climate, and labour.

A roundtable, chaired by Jagjeet Lally, Professor of the South Asian and Global History at University College London, and Director of the Centre for Transnational and Global History, will be followed by a Q&A.

Schedule:

5.00 – 5.30pm: tour of Listening to the earth with curator Hammad Nasar

5.30 – 6.15pm: in conversation with Tanoa Sasraku and Dr Robert Suits

6.15 – 7pm: in conversation with Emii Alrai and Haidy Geismar

7.00 – 7.45pm: roundtable with Emii, Tanoa, Haidy, Robert, chaired by Jagjeet and Q&A

7.45pm – 8.30pm: drinks

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES:

Emii Alrai, born 1993; lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom. Exhibitions: Lures, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate (2026); Capture, Towner Eastbourne (2025); River of Black Stone, Compton Verney, Warwickshire (2025); A Lake as Great as Its Bones, Maximillian William, London (2024); Lithics, Quench Gallery, Margate (2024); Drinkers of the Wind, Into Nature Biennial, Drenthe (2023).

Tanoa Sasraku, born 1995; lives in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. Exhibitions: Turner Prize 2026, MIMA, Middlesbrough (2026); Tropical Ken, Vardaxoglou Gallery, London (2026); Morale Patch, ICA, London (2025–26); Liths, Peer Gallery, London (2023); Terratypes, Spike Island, Bristol (2022).

Hammad Nasar, born 1969 Lahore, Pakistan; London-based curator, writer and researcher. Recent exhibitions: Urdu Worlds, Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai (2026); Beyond the Page, MK Gallery and Making New Worlds, Kettle’s Yard (both 2023–24); British Art Show 9, multiple venues (2021–22) and Turner Prize, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum (2021).

Haidy Geismar is Professor of Anthropology at University College London, and Founding Director of the UCL School for the Creative and Cultural Industries where she has created a new institutional hub for innovative approaches in academic research, teaching and sector engagement focused on art and creative practice, media and technology, public history, museum studies and immersive storytelling. Her research explores the intersection of cultural and intellectual property, indigenous knowledge systems, critical museology and digital anthropology.

Robert Suits is a Lecturer in Environmental History at UCL whose work focuses on energy, climate and labour. His first book, ‘The Hobo: An Environmental History’, explores how migrant work in the industrial United States developed in response to energy transitions and climate disasters; he is also the lead researcher on a wide-ranging digital history project exploring energy transitions across U.S. history.