FKA Twigs: ‘I want to pursue the danger and do it anyway’

“Eusexua is what I would describe as the pinnacle of human experience. It’s the feeling of dancing all night and losing hours to the beat,” FKA twigs explains, her voice barely above a whisper as images of her naked body swirl around us in movement.

Eusexua is a ‘twigism’, a word she crafted from her imagination. It is also the title of her third studio album, which is due to come out in January 2025, and the influence behind her brand new artwork, titled The Eleven, which is now on show at Sotheby’s in London.

The Eleven is a ‘durational’ artwork (a piece that focuses on the passage of time) that twigs has been developing over the past five years. It’s named after 11 body movements she came up with, which explore themes of healing, transformation and resilience. Presented by a rotating group of 11 movement artists over the course of two hours and 20 minutes, these performers move and distort their bodies in myriad ways, from moments when they are filled with energy and to ones where they appear drained from exhaustion. With techno pulsing loudly to the point where you can feel it thumping in your chest, the piece calls us to reconnect with our bodies – a pertinent theme in a moment in time when we are constantly connected to our screens but so detatched from nature that it’s easy forget about our physicality.

“I wanted to create something for my body that felt free and felt good,” twig tells me at preview of the show at Sotheby’s. “Over the past few years, I’ve been on a huge healing journey and have had to learn how to use and live in my body again. I’m lucky to have met people all around the world who have knowledge of the body through somatic healing techniques, structures and abstract ways that we can explore ourselves.”

twigs knows that people may find the performance strange or abstract, but encourages us to come to the exhibition – which is free – and engage with the artwork with an open mind. “Somatic healing is scientifically proven to calm nerves, lower our stress, connect us to our bodies, and just make us breathe and slow down,” she continues. “It’s amazing if you commit to it.”

I watched the movement artists for about half an hour, finding myself on the floor by the end, hypnotised by the dancers’ movements – their breathing and moaning, but most importantly, by their commitment to being on stage for that long. “As exhaustion kicks in, the movements will look different. It’s about exploring these feelings until you feel exhausted and then pushing through and finding a new point of view,” says twigs.

This is the first time in Sotheby’s 280-year history that the auction house has presented an experimental performance piece like The Eleven. Alongside this work, the space is covered with images of twigs produced by her partner, photographer and film director Jordan Hemingway, with segments of her scrapbook from developing the project over the last few years, scattered around the space.

The Eleven is an ambitious project, but the technical elements were not the most challenging parts of creating this project for twigs: “[It’s challenging] to keep on going, because when someone hasn’t necessarily done the same thing that you’ve done before it can be nerve-wracking,” she tells me.

“When I released my first studio album, LP1, I really immersed myself within queer culture, and it was so amazing. For Magdalene, I dug into my femininity with pole dancing and swords. I really wanted to explore that side of Mary Magdalene and the virgin and the whore. And then, with Eusexua, I just made an 11-step movement method that I’m hoping people will like. It feels dangerous, you know? But for me, I want to pursue the danger and do it anyway. I guess that’s the challenge, in a nutshell.”

The Eleven is on view at Sotheby’s, London from September 14-26