Tai Shani was born in 1976 in London, where she lives and works today, creating bodies of work that evolve and expand across her diverse media, often over several years. They take particular cultural forms, historical events or theoretical ideas as a cornerstone in creating worlds that are at once fantastical and utopian, yet shot through with contemporary political and social ideas and convictions. Tai’s vision is fecund and colourful, and her aesthetic enters the sphere of the epic, the sublime and the gothic.
DC: SEMIRAMIS, 2018, Glasgow International (Director’s Programme), UK
Courtesy of Glasgow International and the artist
She reflects with particular profundity on how the modes in which she engages have been historically gendered, and reimagines them for today’s audiences. She also discusses writing as the cornerstone of her work and how her political outlook has shifted through her various projects, alongside considering the revolutionary possibilities of art in a time of extreme right wing politics. Finally, she explores her enduring ambitions for her own work. “I still want to split the atom,” she says.
Installation View: The Sun Is a Flame That Haunts The Night, Tai Shani: High Line Commission, 2025, High Line, New York, USA
Photography by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of The High Line and the artist
She discusses the early impact of seeing Ophelia by John Everett Millais, and how it prompted in her a desire “to be able to move someone through an act of creativity”. She recalls seeing a show of works by Valie Export at Camden Art Centre and how it “completely blew my mind, and nothing was the same afterwards”. She describes the deeply personal circumstances behind Epilogue, a new work responding to Marcel Duchamp’s Étant Donnés. She reflects on the dramatic impact on her of writers including Christine de Pizan, Amy Hollywood and Octavia Butler, and of filmmakers including David Lynch and Carl Dreyer.
Plus, she gives insights into life in the studio, and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: “What is art for?”
- Tai Shani: The Spell or The Dream, Somerset House, 8 August-14 September
- Tai Shani, Gathering, London, 26 September–8 November
- Shani has a work in Dulwich Picture Gallery in London’s new sculpture park which is unveiled as part of an opening weekend on 6-7 September
- Her sculpture for the High Line in New York will remain on view until March 2026.
- What is art for? Contemporary artists on their inspirations, influences and disciplines, by Ben Luke, featuring illustrated, edited versions of 25 artist interviews drawn from the A brush with… podcast series, along with new writings, published by HENI on 2 September (US) and 4 September (UK). Available exclusively from HENI.com now
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture platform.
Bloomberg Connects offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single click, with new guides being added regularly. They include a number of institutions that have shown and collected the work of Tai Shani, from the High Line in New York—in whose guide there is a feature on Tai’s sculpture The Sun Is a Flame That Haunts the Night—to Somerset House, the site of her project The Spell or The Dream in the summer of 2025, and where Tai has her studio. In the guide, you can take a Sonic Histories audio tour of Somerset House and explore its hidden places and dynamic past, including the chapel of Charles I’s queen, Henrietta Maria, and the founding site of the Royal Academy in the House’s north wing, which is now The Courtauld Institute and Gallery. You can also explore the current exhibition, the Lore of LOVERBOY, the fashion brand founded by Charles Jeffrey.
