Tai Shani’s ‘Semiramis’ combines nipples, medieval history and sexual fiction

Tai Shani, Semiramis, (Installation shot), 2018. Courtesy the artist and The Tetley. Photo Jules Lister.

I had been excited to see Semiramis long before the exhibition’s 20 July opening. Developed through performances, films, experimental texts and character-led installations, Semiramis is the culmination of multidisciplinary artist Tai Shani’s ongoing study Dark Continent. It sounded like my cup of tea in every sense. What better way to spend an afternoon than indulging in an immersive exploration of “feminine” subjectivity and experience, built around an 11th century proto-feminist book: Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies? But fate had other ideas. On the Friday I chose to visit Semiramis, Leeds station was hit by lightning and all trains were cancelled. Managing to wangle a taxi with two off-duty police officers, I made it to the old headquarters of one of Leeds’ biggest brewing dynasties where Shani’s pink worm cylinders and blue frogspawn baubles are arranged in the upper foyer by the stairs. The exhibition was good fun, I thought, after zooming round it, still frustrated by the morning’s delays. On the way back I became stranded and had to share a taxi again. Then, on my final long bus ride across the countryside, I received a call: my Grandmother banged her head and was acting strangely. I picked her up taking her to hospital. Three hours later she was unconscious, two days later she died. Semiramis and all I had felt was quickly forgotten, part of a hazed memory of confusion and exhaustion.

As part of the post-funeral tidy up we spent time trawling through Grandma’s family photographs: a collection of tough Victorian Scottish women who were able to scowl and smile at the same time. One had her leg lifted onto a nearby table with a bottle held in glugging position next to her mouth. The others were more formidable: tight lipped, strong chins, sharp eyes. They reminded me of Shani’s study, where “feminine” is not female, but a “radical otherness” and of Phantasmagoregasm, an 18th century hermaphrodite writer of Gothic fiction that Shani created to narrate a chapter of her Dark Continent. Phantasmagoregasm tells the story of two sisters who perpetually bury the decomposing body of their father. It felt obvious to revisit Shani’s first major exhibition.

Tai Shani, Semiramis, 2018. Courtesy the artist and The Tetley. Photo Jules Lister.

On my first trip I had been struck by the jarring placement of Semiramis and felt this once again. The Tetley was once the home of Yorkshire industry, and still being only a couple of minutes walk from central Leeds, it’s not difficult to imagine its former state as a male-driven hub of work and ambition. Arriving at Semiramis – slipping into Shani’s absurdist universe – is so far away from this that finding her installation in the atrium is rather jalting. Her shapes look flimsy next to the iron radiators and wood-panelled rooms, but perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps we are asked to recognise that absurdity is found everywhere, or perhaps we are asked to acknowledge that the strange will always look implausible next to the historical. I do know that on my second visit the atrium seemed more fun. Shani’s bulbous globules are familiar: this aesthetic is prevalent in London, where Shani is from. Many of my own friends are experimenting now with debaucherous extremes as Shani has been doing for over a decade: combining ancient mythology with clubbing for example, as Shani brings together inverted bloodied nipples, medieval history and sexual fiction.

The exhibition is divided into separate rooms of the installation, numerous recordings of female monologues, a virtual reality film, her fanzine Buried, and videos of past performances. To do Semiramis justice, to indulge in Shani’s world as she wishes, you need to spend hours – five is optimal, I read – on the project. I try to devote two on my second visit, but get lost in some of the monologues – in total there are twelve films of twelve characters. Instead I return to the virtual reality room several times. Here Phantasmagoregasm’s short story “The Old Haunted House of Terrifying Terror” is realised to intense perfection as we are invited into the castle of Nora and Alma, the two sisters, using a headset. Sensual techno pulsates through the headphones as we are led through the dimly lit rooms. A rich female voice narrates the sexually explicit story of violence, curses and ghosts. It shouldn’t be so, but the scenes are enticing: the voice and the beat create momentum, and Shani’s visuals take the gothic genre into the future.

Tai Shani, (Installation shot), 2018. Courtesy the artist and The Tetley. Photo Jules Lister.

Semiramis is more than the sum of its parts, which is also its weakness. Each room, and each element of Dark Continent works as an independent investigation into expansive subjects like past and present, human transformation, feminist policies and ideologies, and life and death, always with the female in mind. The themes are strange and unresolvable; the audience is left confused by Shani’s chaos but also glad of it. As you finish, the surrealist scene in the foyer makes more sense now. Shani has taken on a massive project, and the cracks are visible. But as I saw with my Grandma’s ancestors, the female spirit is dazzling and eternal, and worth exploring in whatever way you wish.

Semiramis is open at The Tetley, Leeds until 14th October 2018