In the studio with Korean-Canadian artist Zadie Xa
At the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford, hundreds of bronze shamanic bells – whose clanging resonance is believed, in other circumstances, to lift the veil to the underworld – hang in a seashell shape above a glossy, gold floor. The walls are rendered as traditional Korean patchwork and adorned with murals that have a feel of science fiction-meets-folklore, with human figures, octopuses and sea turtles. An ethereal soundscape emitting from shell-shaped speakers includes the calls of dolphins and orcas, the music of Salpuri (a Korean exorcism dance) and a poem by Alice Walker.
‘I world-build speculative fictions,’ explains Zadie Xa, of the extraordinary, multi-layered installation, entitled Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, And Earth Remembers Everything. Originally conceived for last year’s Sharjah Biennial 16, it saw Zadie nominated for the Turner Prize 2025 – hence its current location in West Yorkshire.
Canadian born and of South Korean heritage, Zadie moved to London in 2012 to do an MA at the Royal College of Art. Our conversation takes place in the 1960s former printworks in Bromley-by-Bow, E3, where, since 2015, she has had various studio spaces, including a period sharing with
her husband, the artist Benito Mayor Vallejo. Zadie now occupies two rooms, situated opposite each other. One – for painting – is lined with primed canvases, by way of strips of coloured cloth stitched together. The other, her ‘clean studio’, is packed with intriguing component parts of her practice. There are books on myth, legend and religious practices, masks, furry toys, Christian Dior handbags (there has been a collaboration), more bells and hundreds upon thousands of shells.
Shells have been a mainstay motif since a trip to Jeju Island in South Korea in 2017, where Zadie discovered the haenyeo (sea women), who make their living diving for conches. ‘I don’t have a root identity to Korean heritage, so I have had to invent it,’ she says. ‘At the same time, I’m looking for common ground signifiers,’ Zadie reveals, listing shells’ lengthy history within art and their use for commerce. She also mentions our proclivity as children to put them to our ear, so we might hear the sound of the sea ‘or be able to communicate with the people who came before us, or someone from a different realm’. ‘Art is a way into other cultures,’ she explains, ‘and I want to find the parallels between them.’ Among a rack of costumes for the performances that are often central to her installations are cardinal-red robes that speak both to Henri Matisse’s vestment designs for the Chapelle du Rosaire at Vence in the south of France – Zadie was raised Catholic – and to Korean shamanism.
A grid of Post-it notes maps the development of Moonlit Confessions. ‘I start with the idea, the plot,’ she says. ‘Everything else follows – colour, texture, and all the ambivalence they bring. There’s no right way to see my work.’ Her husband Benito aids with exhibition design and Zadie says that what is always deliberate is the beauty: ‘It gives me joy to create spaces that I want to be in.’ It’s an infectious joy. Notably, Zadie’s show House Gods, Animal Guides and Five Ways 2 Forgiveness, at Whitechapel Gallery, E1 in 2022-2023, became a hang-out space for teenagers from the local Bangladeshi community. And it is the promise of bringing her fantastical worlds to a new audience and inviting them to find a connection – to commune across space, time and culture – more than the possibility of winning the Turner Prize (at the time of going to print, we do not yet know the results) that makes Zadie so pleased to have been nominated. Gratifyingly, Bradford Council has announced a nearly 50 per cent increase in visitors to Cartwright Hall since the exhibition opened – and it’s not over yet.
‘Turner Prize 2025’ is at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford until February 22. bradfordmuseums.org | zadiexa.com | ropac.net
1/10The ‘Lady Dior’ handbag, reinvented by Zadie in 2024 as part of the Lady Dior Art Project.
Joshua Monaghan2/10Zadie’s desk space, complete with pet beds, books and collected objects.
Joshua Monaghan3/10A dragon marionette hanging in her painting studio.
Joshua Monaghan4/10The Post-it notes that map out her Moonlit Confessions installation.
Joshua Monaghan5/10Zadie on her studio sofa surrounded by the toys she bought during lockdown.
Joshua Monaghan6/10Oil pastels used in the artist’s practice.
Joshua Monaghan7/10A shell worn as a helmet in Zadie’s Dream Dangerous performance for Frieze Live, 2020.
David Levene8/10The blunt edges of a blade will still cut flesh (self portrait at 40), 2024.
Joshua Monaghan9/10A performance costume for Child of Magohalmi and the Echoes of Creation, 2019
Joshua Monaghan10/10
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