Gut Feelings: Tai Shani's The Spell

“but like for why?”

“Something tells me this being is being passed off as art but actually real.”

“the megalophobia in me would never allow me near it especially since it’s breathing”

I see Tai Shani’s The Spell on TikTok before I see it in person; it went viral while it occupied the courtyard of Somerset House, London, before it arrived at Edinburgh’s Jupiter Artland. It must’ve taken the A1 and passed the Angel of the North to reach its final resting place.

I first learned what it’s like to come face-to-face with this blue giant through a spiky stream of Gen Z comments. But when I meet it in real life – pull my body up to the coffin that encases her, clouding the glass with my breath – I realise 'it' is the wrong pronoun for her. She sleeps soundly at Jupiter, her chest gently rising and falling, within earshot of that crazy mustard mansion.

I loop around her to take her in from all angles; her foot is the size of my torso, and her torso is the size of a whale (give or take). What must’ve happened for her to choose to live in this glass box? I think of a poem by Mary Oliver. It’s called The Journey. You should read it. This poem must be about this giant: it’s the only reason she’s here, dreaming. This is no sleeping beauty myth – she is not here against her will, and she is not in a coma. She is protecting herself, muffling out the external voices and their bad advice, until she knows what she has to do.

---

Tai Shani: The Spell or The Dream, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, until 12 Sep