Yaya Hai - STUDIO DAYS IN LONDON
A DAY WITH TACITURNLI®
Yaya Hai They/Them @brog.de.mer
Yaya is a visual artist, care worker, and event facilitator whose work drifts through outdoor spaces, sounding ancestral echoes, queer ecology, and disabled rhythms into rituals of art, healing, and liberation. Yaya works at the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve Community Garden, where we spent a morning surrounded by greenery, learning how they create and host workshops in nature. The sunlight, herbs, and scent of soil made this session feel especially free and grounding.
Yaya Hai Q&A for Taciturnli
T: Winter’s coming to London, do you think it affects your creativity
Y:Winter is a season I’m learning to look forward to. It a season to curl back inward, into deeper waters and shadow underground work. Even if the days are shorter and the color less vivid there is a biomass of life happening that is crucial for spring to merge again.
T: What have you been working on lately? Can you tell us a bit about it?
Y:I’ve been deepening my learning about TCM and herbalism, incorporating that into the art that I make. Exploring around the tensions in the body that break out of rigid definitions of Yin and Yang, and cycles and spirals we experience through seasons.
T: What’s your favourite flower and why do you love it?
Y:I love yarrow. It’s a protective herb that grows almost everywhere I know. It’s one of the first one to emerge from winter on grass fields. It can heal wounds, soothe pain, protect your soul especially if you’re a warrior-type person!
T: What’s your favourite park in London?
Y:The bethnal green nature reserve (not exactly a park!) and the wetlands.
T:Is there an artist or art collective who’s had a big influence on you?
Y:Too many to just highlight one!
T:You often collaborate with others. What does collaboration mean to you? Any memorable ones?
Y:Collaboration to me is a vast learning terrain. It’s not just about producing something but being in relation to other beings that have a different world than you, and finding what’s in common. It’s a humbling, world-opening work, that I’m always coming back to.
T: Was there a moment when you felt, “I’m so lucky to do this work”?
Y: Everytime I make art it becomes a long digestion process. Digestion can be slow, it’s not about productivity. But everytime I come at the end of a digesting cycle with one artwork, it feeds back to me a feeling of completion that feel quite magical. Everytime I get to experience this uncoincidental randomness makes me feel like this work is worth it.
T:Why did you choose to live in London? What’s the most magical thing about the city for you?
Y:I didn’t really choose it. Long story. But the most magical thing here are the people, especially the ones that have made space for me to be my truer self and who I am building a sense of home with.
T:Is there a song you’ve been loving lately? Share it with us!
Y:Always - Time Sharp . Transa
T:How does Taciturnli feel to wear?
Y:I felt very colorful, expressive and enveloped by those clothes. The colors resonate a lot with my internal world and how I want to present through colors that tell a story. And also the feeling of being very mobile, practical, that my clothes have a thoughtful structure. They are very grounding to wear.
Coat: SUPER LIGHT CALEDONIA DOWN JKT
Sweater: MACY-V SWEATSHIRTS
Sweater: FISHERMAN SWEATER
Skirt: CHECK NOLIA SKIRT
Styling：TACITUNRLI, Senko
Talent: Yaya Hai
Photography: OT
Video Photography: Leng Yu
Project assistant: Yuchen Yuan
Location: Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, London
