Dominique White's Six-Month Italian Residency for Max Mara Art Prize

Dominique White (UK, 1993), winner of the ninth Max Mara Art Prize for Women (2022-2024), is midway through a six-month residency in Italy organized by Collezione Maramotti. The prize, a collaboration between Max Mara, Maramotti, and Whitechapel Gallery (London), supports female-identifying artists (cis, trans, non-binary) at a career stage without major retrospectives. White's residency spans five locations: Agnone, Palermo, Genoa, Milan, and Todi. In Milan, she worked at Fonderia Battaglia (via Oslavia 17) on bronze casting—her first time using the material. Previous stops included the Pontificia Fonderia di Campane Marinelli in Agnone, dialogues with historian Giovanna Fiume in Palermo on Mediterranean slave trade, and visits to naval museums and archives in Genoa with professors Claudia Tacchella and Massimo Corradi. In Milan, she explored lost-wax casting and the naval section of the Museo della Scienza Leonardo da Vinci. From August to October, she will be in Todi to create the final sculpture, assisted by Michele Ciribifera (former assistant to Beverly Pepper). The new work, part of the series Deadweight (a term for both 'dead weight' and gross tonnage), will incorporate bronze and be partially submerged at sea in 2024 before the final exhibition in London and Reggio Emilia. White's practice explores Afro-maritime worlds, Blackness, and regeneration through mixed materials, ropes, sails, and anchors. She won the Foundwork Artist Prize in 2022.