Tai Shani: 'I want it to feel almost like an apparition, as in mythology'
A version of this article first appeared in the autumn 2025 issue of Art Quarterly, the membership magazine of Art Fund.
Who is Tai Shani?
Born in London in 1976, Turner Prize-winning artist Tai Shani creates work in a range of media including installation, film, audio, performance and writing. Her often collaborative practice explores feminist ideas, texts and mythologies, incorporating reimagined narratives and alternative worlds. Shani’s new commission, The Spell or The Dream, supported by Art Fund, was on show in the courtyard at Somerset House in London, before travelling to Jupiter Artland in Edinburgh.
From childhood, I was compelled by the idea of suspended states of animation in fairy tales. I was interested in what extremely long sleeps or dreaming periods would look like. In my work I’ve often used devices to create an idea of elsewhereness, such as through performances in spaces inaccessible to an audience. This is created in The Spell or The Dream through the character of a sleeping giant in a glass coffin on a plinth. I want it to feel almost like an apparition, as in mythology where an unexpected arrival drives the narrative.
The figure is blue. Figurative work is a bit of a departure for me; I’ve always struggled with ideas of representation because they’re charged, particularly in our present social context. It’s important this character doesn’t reinforce narratives that don’t align with me or other people.
The character is not placeable in terms of race, age or gender. They’re humanoid. But they could be a future person, an alien, robot, cyborg. Maybe they are a hallucination from the past. The main concern is to bring in something that feels ‘other’, as othering and dehumanisation are becoming the core social dynamics of our time.
I didn’t want the sculpture to be completely static. A kind of breathing movement is visible; the figure’s eyes slightly open. Speakers inside its structure emit an incredible soundtrack composed by producer and musician Maxwell Sterling. This sonar element severs reality in the context of the outdoor space.
An accompanying broadcast programme, The Dream radio, includes three new commissions by poet, musician and activist Moor Mother and artists Cecilia Vicuña and Cécile B Evans.
I have a good sense of how the public space of Somerset House operates, with children playing in the fountains, for instance. It’s a different encounter with a different audience compared to a gallery. In London, the sculpture will be at the core of the city. At Jupiter Artland it will be in nature. I’m hoping people there will encounter perhaps an experience of discovery more than a sense of arrival. And I’m wondering if things will grow on the sculpture as it becomes sucked into nature.
It’s a real privilege to be able to see my work in different places, and I’ve always loved art that has a strong emotive aspect. Making The Sun Is a Flame That Haunts The Night (2025-26) for New York's High Line and seeing people’s responses to those sculptures has made me really think about how we imagine what public art can be. The Spell or The Dream is quite unique as a big public art piece with a more nuanced, multilayered aspect in the radio programme.
It’s exciting that, potentially, a viewer who isn’t part of the usual audiences might see this and maybe listen to the radio as well, encountering the ideas of the work in alternative ways. I think that there is not always enough respect for audiences. People can enjoy things aesthetically, because they see themselves in a work, because it speaks to their particular interests, and then there are people who want to get into the granular detail of references within a piece. I appreciate all of these. Every encounter with the work is the full encounter.
Tai Shani: The Spell or The Dream, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, 10 October to 27 September 2026. 50% off entry with National Art Pass.