Challenging our perceptions

By Bronwen Beechey

Body Suits is an exhibition that is touring nationally. It is produced by Arts Access, an organisation working with people who have a disability or are disadvantaged by social conditions, giving them the opportunity to make a cultural contribution to the broader community and participate actively in the arts.

Nine contemporary artists, with and without disabilities, address presumptions of what constitutes a normal body in our society. They include Ross Barber, Susan Norrie, Ed Burton, Cecilia Clarke, Colin Duncan, Mikala Dwyer, Ruark Lewis, Bronwyn Platten and Jane Trengrove.

Trengrove, who is also curator of the exhibition, explains, "The title Body Suits refers to the way people are perceived visually. Things like race, gender and physical disability are primarily coded through our sense of sight, and often discrimination is based purely on people's appearance, which has nothing to do with who they really are."

Trengrove's exhibit is a model of her own leg brace bound in wool, symbolising confinement, over-protection and smothering goodwill — situations that she says are still experienced by people with disabilities.

"There are still a lot of patronising, do-gooder types involved in organisations that provide help for the disabled, and often disabled people have little choice about where they can go for assistance, so they just have to put up with it. There has been some improvement since the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act in 1992, but a lot of issues still need to be addressed."

Body Suits will show in Melbourne from July 5 to August 2 at the 200 Gertrude St Gallery in Fitzroy, and in Sydney at the Casula Powerhouse from November 3 to 15. The exhibition will travel through regional Victoria in early 1998, then on to Adelaide, Tasmania and Perth.

From GLW issue 280