Exquisite Bodies on the Move - Bruno Booth

ABOUT THE EVENT

Exquisite Bodies on the Move is an outdoor sculpture installation, directly inspired by Bruno Booth’s exhibition Exquisite Bodies at The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA). The outdoor exhibition takes the grey, EVA foam, interactive sculpture pieces of the AGWA exhibition, scales them up, and places them in the environment of the Perth Cultural Centre where they appear to be rising out of or sinking into the precinct.

These larger pieces take the multi-generational, interactive aspect of the AGWA exhibition outside of the gallery, to be explored by all.

Exquisite Bodies is a dynamic, interactive exhibition developed in collaboration with artist Bruno Booth and The Art Gallery of Western Australia’s Head of Learning and Creativity Research, Lilly Blue. This accessible, multi-sensory, participatory, all-ages exhibition interrupts preconceived perceptions of disability and normativity allowing space for slow-play, experimentation, dialogue, and reflection.

Interrogating and expanding on the ideas of beauty, mobility and ability, Exquisite Bodies draws on the surrealist game Exquisite Corpse (Cadavre Exquis), as an open-ended celebration of difference. Inviting audiences of all ages to interact with playable figurative sculptures and drawing games which challenges us to reshape our thinking, recognise the uncomfortable, and celebrate the value and beauty of every body.

More information about the exhibition can be found here.

Artist Bio

Bruno Booth has used a wheelchair for most of his life, interrupted by a short and unsuccessful career as an amateur stilt walker when he used prosthetic legs as a child. In his memory these leather and metal devices would not have been out of place on the set of some dystopian, apocalyptic epic – not in a cool and attractive Fury Road sort of way, more like the zombies in the original Walking Dead. The experience of wearing restrictive equipment left him with a dislike of tight-fitting clothing, a love of speed and a need to reach over his head in supermarkets – as a child he made the decision to use a wheelchair as his primary mode of transport – and he’s never looked back (probably because he’s too busy looking out for sand pits on dark footpaths).    

Having a disability has been a constant background hum throughout Booth’s life. Kind of like a social tinnitus – you know it’s there, but you try not to talk about it. It was only when he started to call himself an artist, without cringing too much, that he began to engage critically with what it meant to be categorised as disabled. 

Image credit: Exquisite Bodies, Bruno Booth, installation view, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, 2023. Photo: Louise Coghill Photography.