Sirens’ Oath for Other Worlds, 2025
Tate Britain, London
Photo: Costanza Bergo, Before Sunset Studio
Photo: Dan Weill Photography
Sirens’ Oath was a live ritual performance and short-form roleplaying game staged as part of Late at Tate Britain: Other Worlds, developed in response to the visionary and surreal practice of Ithell Colquhoun. Drawing on myth, eco-grief, feminine rage, and collective power, the work invited audiences into a shared act of storytelling that sat between ritual, improvisation, and performance.
The performance unfolded in two parts. It opened with A Siren’s Lament, a spoken word invocation performed by Wingshan from the Members’ Balcony, calling across the gallery as audiences entered the museum. The lament introduced the sirens’ world, setting the tone through grief, return, and embodied voice.
Photo: Dan Weill Photography
This was followed by Sirens’ Oath, a live “actual play” ritual led by artist Wingshan alongside performers Michelle Kelly, Rachel Honeyghan-Williams, Eleanor James Sharpe, and Anjuli Smith. Together, the performers embodied mermaid witches tasked with deciding the fate of a city. Guided by collective improvisation and the roll of a single six-sided die, the performance evolved over time, allowing audiences to stay, drift, and return. The work blurred the boundaries between roleplay, ceremony, and live storytelling, creating an intimate and emotionally resonant atmosphere within the gallery.
Presented during the Tate Lates programme aligned with the Ithell Colquhoun exhibition at Tate Britain, Sirens’ Oath placed feminist fantasy-led storytelling in dialogue with the museum’s collections. Through speculative play and ritual action, the work asked what should be drowned, what should be remembered, and what might still rise.
