existential boner
Mahalia taje Giotto
existential boner is a personal work about obsessions related to the body, identity and sexuality. It was published as a book by SPBH and ECAL in July 2023, and is also an installation.
Mahalia taje Giotto is and has always been a trans person; they chose to identify as non-binary and started their gender-affirming hormone therapy in November 2020. They closely and compulsively monitored the changes they were undergoing, as a way of reappropriation of their own self. Doing so, photography was for taje the best way to record all of these steps, following the never ending rhythm of their obsessive thoughts. Through a compilation of images and texts, including collages, graffiti,
vernacular photography, studio shoots, snapshots, and scans, taje’s body of work evolved in parallel with their own body, developing in a direction that emphasized the urgent feelings crawling through their mind, ultimately telling a singular story that brings representation to many—representation that
was lacking in their childhood.
Inspired by photographers and artists such as Helena Almeida, Francesca Woodman, Pierre Molinier, Cindy Sherman and many others, taje drew from these influences their creativity looking to explore the limits of photography.
Mahalia Giotto, aka taje (b. 1992), is a Lausanne-based visual artist working across photography, performance, installation, and archives. Originally trained in international relations at the University of Geneva, they later turned to photography, earning a Master’s degree from ECAL/Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne in 2022.
Their work is deeply shaped by their personal journey as a trans non-binary person. Fascinated by androgynous figures in animated series, taje experienced gender fluidly in childhood. However, adolescence imposed binary expectations that never felt right. Their transition, including starting hormone therapy in 2020, profoundly influenced their life and artistic practice.
Among their notable projects, existential boner merges photography, collage, text, and scans to construct an intimate yet radical self-portrait. Studio portraits, vernacular snapshots, and handwritten annotations create a raw, urgent narrative—part personal history, part deconstructed archive. Their installations increasingly incorporate text and graffiti-like interventions, turning space into a site of both personal reflection and public confrontation. The project was exhibited at Images Vevey, in a solo show at SPBH Space in Milan, and won the Swiss Design Awards in 2024. It was published as a book by ECAL and SPBH in July 2023.
Currently, taje is developing, on the verge of becoming completely forgotten, a three-part project examining masculinity as a force that is both protective and isolating.