Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art

Corpores Infames: Disreputable Bodies

A photo of a sunny bogland landscape, golden brown in late afternoon sunlight. At the top text reads ‘Corpores Infames’ in a font made from drawings of nude people shaping their bodies into the letters. Shadows of 3 people creep across the grass on the left foreground. In the centre foreground two pools of water sit in the bogland. On the right foreground a photoshopped black ink drawing of a bog butter container on its side appears like it has spilled its contents out into the pool.
Belladonna Paloma, Oren Shoesmith and Rabindranath X Bhose, Corpores Infames, 2024
Courtesy of the artists
A photograph showing a sun-bleached greyish lambs skull against a white wall. On the top of the forehead of the skull, in bright fluorescent pink paint, an egg with its shadow behind it has been painted.
Belladonna Paloma, Egg Anointed Skull, 2023
Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Peter Otto
a close up of a person performing in front of a green hill with an old stone building on top. He is covered with a muddy mixture, wearing a pink neckerchief with a bare chest. His head is tilted, his eyes are closed and he looks blissful. There are two people watching him in the background.
Rabindranath X Bhose, Body of the Bog, 2023
Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Sean Patrick Campbell
An oval ceramic plate on a white wall. The ceramic is a tan brown colour with an inky black drawing of a monk bending over a stone dolman in prayer. In front there are two crutches in the grass, crossed over each other. Above, some clouds and a round moon are visible.
Oren Shoesmith, 2023
Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Rabindranath X Bhose
Dates and Opening times

Thu 20 June, 6pm – 10pm

Travel information and event booking details available from May.

Venue

Lenzie Moss
Lenzie
East Dunbartonshire
Glasgow
G66 4DB

Participants
Rabindranth X Bhose Belladonna Paloma Oren Shoesmith
Presented by

Rabindranth X Bhose, Belladonna Paloma & Oren Shoesmith

Supported by

Supported by Glasgow International with funds from the Scottish Government’s Festivals EXPO Fund. With special thanks to East Dunbartonshire Council.

Accessiblity

Limited Access: Wheelchair accessible bog with a boardwalk

Corpores Infames: Disreputable Bodies is a performance playing with the connections between trans bodies, boglands and the ancient Celtic rituals honouring them. Emerging from the research of three artists living across Glasgow and the Shetland Islands with a shared devotion to wetlands, this solstice ritual performance explores what boglands can teach us about commitment to deep time and resistance to the tyranny of productivity. Belladonna Paloma, Oren Shoesmith, and Rabindranath X Bhose will lead audience members on a walk through Lenzie Moss, a peatland north of Glasgow. During the walk, visitors will witness a boggy dance inspired by ancient rituals to mark the season’s change. Votive sculptures will be exhibited within Lenzie Moss for the duration of Glasgow International, enabling a self-guided bog walk. 

Tacitus called the preserved bodies found in bogs ‘corpores infames’, or ‘disreputable bodies’, referencing his belief that they were killed and buried by Celtic tribes for their homosexuality. The work reclaims this derogatory moniker and finds its reparative power, considering trans people as the ‘disreputable bodies’ of our current moment. Corpores Infames: Disreputable Bodies expands the idea of disreputable bog bodies to the bog as a whole ecosystem, as well as to trans bodies, proving both are resistant to capitalist frameworks.