Exhibition graphics for exhibition Tai Shani – The World to Me was a secret: Caesious, Zinnober, Celadon, and Virescent at Cosmic House, London, May–Dec 

The Cosmic House was created by Charles and Maggie Jencks between 1978 and 1983 in Holland Park, London. It was the living space for the radical couples family and hotbed for creative and architectural thought.  The house was always intended to be more than a home, and nothing of the house follows rules of conventional design.  

The World to Me was a secret: Caesious, Zinnober, Celadon, and Virescent is a site-specific exhibition by Tai Shani. It plays and unites the thinking, shared sensibilities and themes of the artist’s and those of Charles Jencks – cosmology, anthropomorphism, and ad-hocism. 

Shani draws on mythologies within Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus – the installation is a fragmented and fantastic voyage inside the body of a monster. 

As part of the exhibition Shani wrote a fictional text displayed in the exhibition pamphlet. Its design explores the mapping out the fragmented journey – it’s fold’s refers to the game of exquisite corps.  The design reflects the similarities  in sensibilities between the artist and those found in the Cosmic House – the pattern of malachite floor being the pattern of the cover. The selected typefaces echos an original copy of Shelley’s book.