Episode 11: Give me a break with Tai Shani

On Give me a break this week, Harriet’s guest is the artist Tai Shani. Tai was born in London in 1976, and had an unconventional, hippyish childhood, including time spent in a psychedelic community in Goa, which offered her a liberal perspective, but as she puts it, a slightly mangled relationship with authority.

She always knew she’d be an artist, but it’s been a road filled with detours. From working as a fashion photographer in the 1990s to crafting dildos for a lesbian sex shop (that’s Doctor Dildo to you). It’s no surprise then, that Tai’s eclectic background is reflected in her practice. Tai is an architect of myth, moving between performance, film, installation (whatever medium feels right at the time) and experimental text, which underpins her work. In her epic, sci-fi infused universes – some of which are years in duration – Christine de Pizan meets hallucinogenic fungi, cosmic slime meets feminine excess, and forgotten histories are reimagined.

In 2019, she made history when she won the Turner Prize, sharing the honour alongside three other nominees, who collectively asked to share the award in a statement of solidarity. Alongside her work, Tai has been a longtime tutor in contemporary art practice (she was recently named a visiting professor at the Royal College of Art), which has given her a window onto the challenges facing emerging artists today. In this conversation, Tai and Harriet talk rejection, learning curves, performances gone wrong, bad crits (you know we love disaster at GMAB), and even going Tiktok viral (like proper viral) with her recent installation at Somerset House. Tai also reflects poignantly on the grief of losing her mother, to whom her current show at Gathering is dedicated.

“I’ve always tried to use the spite of rejection as a way to be like ‘I’ll show you.’ Because I’ve had a lot of it, and my trajectory wasn’t smooth, really, at all.”