Shani Leseman
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Tommy Smits, Shani Leseman, Zinderin Kunst
2,20 x 2,60 meter, ceramic tiles, steel construction
What does it mean to depict a human being today?
Throughout history, the human figure in art has reflected societal ideals—ranging from physical strength and autonomy to rationality and progress. An emerging sense of renewed value in dependency, care, and collective responsibility invites us to reconsider our conception of the human today. No longer viewed as a fixed, autonomous unit, the human is increasingly understood as a being deeply entangled with the environment it lives in and emerges from.
Once Upon a Human is a collaborative project by Tommy Smits and Shani Leseman, developed in close partnership with artists from Zinderin Kunst—a gallery and ceramics studio in The Hague for people with disabilities or barriers to employment. Together, they created a life-sized ceramic wall relief. At the heart of the work is a drawing by one of the artists: an uncanny, hybrid, intersex human figure, rendered as a rapid sketch that breaks away from anatomical precision. The drawing functions as an expressive tool, communicating a self-image that transcends language. Surrounding it is a field of individual tiles, each filled in by different artists from Zinderin Kunst, Tommy and Shani.
Working from a shared framework, Smits and Leseman engaged the participating artists in conversations centered on the human in a changing world. What are you made of? What does your body feel like? The artists drew from personal memories—childhood experiences, holiday snapshots, or everyday objects—and combined these with visual references from science and esotericism, including biological cells, auras, clocks, and galaxies. The smallest was linked to the vastest; the ordinary, to the cosmic. Some tiles were hand-sculpted, while others were based on photographs, transformed into 3D models, printed, and pressed into clay to create intricate reliefs. The act of making offered a tangible way to engage the project’s central questions: learning through doing, directly related to one’s environment and place within it.
The working process is integral to the piece. Collaboration is central—both thematically and methodologically. The wall relief brings together diverse voices, giving each maker space to express their own visual language. Authorship is shared, and the resulting image is more than the sum of its parts: it is a collective body, formed through the interconnection of the makers, their surroundings, and their worldviews.
Once Upon a Human is informed by a range of artistic and craft-based practices. Leseman brings a practice rooted in spirituality, magic, and collaboration with more-than-human agents. Smits approaches the image through a photographic lens, treating structural supports—like the frame—as carriers of meaning. His work often involves collective rituals, such as carnival, and challenges the notion of the artist as a solitary figure. Zinderin Kunst centers on a daily practice where craft becomes a form of care, structure, and self-expression. The direct and intuitive approach of the participating artists from Zinderin Kunst shaped both the process and the final result in fundamental ways.
The figure that emerged from this collective process offers an alternative vision of the human—not as an autonomous hero or rational individual, but as a collective body. It challenges the notion of an anatomical ideal and affirms that no single, standard body exists.
Participating artists Zinderin Kunst: Boshra Bakrimi, Nabil Bakrimi, Mo Ameziane, Dyon Faber, Laurens Gabriël, Dustin Hofman, Liliane Jansen, Lonneke Klinkenberg, Bassam Mosa, Cyril Rosebel
Text by Marijn Bril
Thanks to Vriendenloterij Fonds