The Spell or The Dream
The Spell or The Dream. Photography by Abby Quick.
Tai Shani
The Spell or The Dream
Open October 12th until September 2026
Turner Prize-winning, Somerset House Studios artist Tai Shani presents: The Spell or The Dream. A new work for the landscape, The Spell or The Dream is a multi-faceted work inviting audiences to collectively dream of new horizons.
At its heart is The Spell, a magnificent new sculpture sited in Jupiter’s orchard of apple and plum trees. Resting atop a stepped plinth, where visitors can sit, gather or peer inside, the luminous blue figure gently breathes, caught in a suspended state, the spell. The dreamer sleeps through the warnings of present and imminent catastrophes, political and social disaster and environmental collapse – but it also dreams of resistance and renewal. The work features a newly commissioned soundscape by composer, producer and double bassist Maxwell Sterling.
The Spell or The Dream (2025) was commissioned by and developed in residence at Somerset House Studios. Commission and touring presentations made possible with Art Fund support.
The Dream radio
A 24/7 radio broadcast exploring dreaming as a radical act of imagination, co-curated by Turner Prize winner and Somerset House Studios artist Tai Shani.
Alongside the installation, The Dream radio invites guest contributors and audiences to reimagine new and hopeful ways of being, collectively. Co-curated by Shani and Somerset House Studios, and broadcasting globally via www.dreamradio.net, the radio features specially commissioned contributions, alongside archival work, by an extensive list of artists, writers, musicians, academics, activists and thinkers, exploring dreaming as a radical act of imagination. Contributors include Brian Eno, Cecilia Vicuña, Cecile B Evans, Cuthwolf Eileen Miles, Jay Bernard, Max Porter, Maxine Peake, Moor Mother, Reggie Watts, Tanya Tagaq and Yanis Varoufakis.
Follow the link to listen to The Dream Radio: Listen Here
Under the spell, we are dreaming—but of what does the dreamer dream?
Sleeping through warnings of present and future catastrophes, the violence of colonialism, environmental collapse, social breakdown, and geo-political turmoil, the dreamer has been dreaming of resistance against the fairytale of empire, of renewal and new imaginaries.
In dialogue with The Spell, Tai Shani’s spectacular new sculpture in the Somerset House courtyard, The Dream is a 24/7 radio broadcast which envisions ways of being and building together, dreaming of futures beyond the prevailing destruction. Co-curated by Shani and broadcast globally, the radio features new commissions and contributions, alongside archival work, by an extensive list of artists, writers, musicians, academics, economists, activists and thinkers, exploring dreaming as a radical act of imagination.
From this assemblage of dreamers, The Dream transmits sounds and stories of different temporalities and visionary practices, from medieval mysticism to alternative economics, ancient sacred knowledges to the psychedelic potential of AI. It weaves between the surreal, the cosmic, the utopic, the poetic, the revolutionary, and experiences of expanded perception in and for everyday life. The space of dreaming cracks open the path to other realities, where states of crisis and violence are countered with communal possibilities for life and liberation.
The Dream invites listeners on journeys through three different dream states throughout the day, with a constantly changing programme. Every evening between 7pm and 10pm, Waking Dream will premiere brand new commissions and original contributions from artists, writers and thinkers with a scheduled programme of releases. Day Dream trawls deep through the archives of artists, musicians and radio stations playing a selection of old radio documentaries, sound works, plays, music playlists and conversations throughout the day. Deep Dream echoes the introspective and uncanny world of dreamscapes with audiobooks and music playing overnight.
A series of radio collaborations takes The Dream global, sharing the airwaves of Resonance FM (London), Montez Press Radio (New York), Oroko Radio (Accra), Hong Kong Community Radio (Hong Kong), Radio Tsonami (Valparaíso, Chile), Stegi Radio (Athens) and Seydisfjordsur Community Radio (Seyðisfjörður, Iceland). It also features curated programmes from the contemporary archives of experimental platforms and community radio stations XMTR, Radio Atlas, Ear Hustle, Shortwave Collective and Radiophrenia.
The Dream is a continuous broadcast; the programme will not be available on demand. Between 7pm and 10pm BST daily, new time-based audio works will premiere, allowing you to plan your listening in advance.
CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Spell or The Dream by Tai Shani is commissioned by and developed in residence at Somerset House Studios.
Curated by Marie McPartlin, Director, Somerset House Studios, and independent researcher, curator, and writer Rahila Haque.
Executive Producer/ Head of Somerset House Studios: Emma Hannon
Head of Digital Programming and Production: Eleanor Ritter-Scott
Exhibitions and Special Projects Manager: Jodie Edwards
Executive Audio Producer: Alannah Chance
Curator: Marina Doritis
Programme Producer: Laurent John
The Dream Radio
Senior Audio Producer: Clem Hitchcock
Audio Producer: Tess Davidson
Broadcast Producer: Harry Murdoch
Original Composition: Axel Kacoutié
Additional Sound Design: Steve Urquhart
Digital Content Producer: Wes Gilpin
Web Design: Rifke Sadleir
Artwork: Adam Sinclair
Commission supported by Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a Donor Advised Fund held at The Prism Charitable Trust.
With additional support from Jingmei Liu and Gathering.
About Tai Shani
Tai Shani is an artist living and working in London. She is the joint 2019 Turner Prize winner together with Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock and Oscar Murillo. In 2019 Tai was a Max Mara prize nominee. In 2025, Shani presented The Sun Is a Flame That Haunts The Night, as part of the High Line, New York, commission programme. During August 2025, Shani will bring together sculpture, radio and live gatherings under a large-scale commission at Somerset House, London.
Shani’s most recent solo exhibitions include The World to Me Was A Secret: Caesious, Zinnober, Celadon, and Virescent at The Cosmic House, UK and Lavish Phantoms of the House of Dust at Gio Marconi, Milan, Italy. In 2023, Shani was the subject of solo exhibitions at KM21, The Hague, and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. Her work has been shown at British Art Show 09, Touring (2021), CentroCentro, Madrid (2019–20), Turner Contemporary, UK (2019); Grazer Kunst Verein, Austria (2019); Nottingham Contemporary, UK (2019); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy (2019); Glasgow International, UK (2018); Tensta Konsthall, Sweden (2017), Wysing Arts Centre, UK (2017); Serpentine Galleries, UK (2016); Tate, UK (2016); and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Ireland (2016).
Tai Shani’s artistic practice, comprising performance, film, photography, and installation, uses experimental writing as a guiding method. Oscillating between theoretical concepts and visceral details, Shani’s texts attempt to create poetic coordinates in order to cultivate, fragmentary cosmologies of marginalised non-sovereignty. Taking cues from both mournful and undead histories of reproductive labour, illness and solidarity, her work is invested in recovering feminised aesthetic modes – such as the floral, the trippy or the gothic – in a register of utopian militancy. In this vein, the epic, in both its literary long-form and excessive affect, often shapes Shani’s approach: Her long-term projects work through historical and mythical narratives, such as Christine de Pizan’s allegorical city of women or the social history of psychedelic ergot poisoning. Extending into divergent formats and collaborations. Shani’s projects examine desire in its (infra-)structural dimension, exploring a realism that materially fantasises against the patriarchal racial capitalist present.
The Spell or The Dream (2025) was commissioned by and developed in residence at Somerset House Studios.
Commission made possible with Art Fund support. Photography: Tim Bowditch
