A Tax Haven Run By Women
- Artist: Monster Chetwynd
- Date: 2010–1
- Medium: Aluminium, synthetic textiles, hessian, canvas, silk, latex, paper, plastic, straw, clay, paint and video, monitor, colour and sound (stereo) with occasional performance
- Dimensions: Overall display dimensions variable
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “A Tax Haven Run By Women” by Monster Chetwynd. The piece is an installation of sculptures and costumes that the artist uses in live performances. It imagines a chaotic game‑show where two teams—“Women Who Refuse to Grow Old Gracefully,” inspired by Mae West, and “The Oppressed Purée”—battle in a dance‑off to win a ride to a tax haven. The winning team travels in a Catbus straight out of Hayao Miyazaki’s *My Neighbour Totoro*.
While the dancers compete, other performers dress as a male cult leader and seals that control the soundtrack, adding absurdity and spontaneity. Chetwynd draws on research into economics, anthropology, and eccentric individuals, using the spectacle to comment on how cults and tax havens share a remote, isolated allure. “The performance is a weird mix of goofy Mae West‑style women running a dreamlike tax haven and a scary cult leader gone wrong,” she explains.
See it in person
A Tax Haven Run By Women is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
