Corpores Infames: Disreputable Bodies was 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 explored 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 lead audience members on a walk through Lenzie Moss, a peatland north of Glasgow. During the walk, visitors witnessed a boggy dance, song and prayer inspired by ancient rituals to mark the season’s change, featuring hand-dyed banners and monks habits.

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. This work reclaims this derogatory moniker to find 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, proposing both are resistant to capitalist frameworks.

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

Choreography by Kirstin Alexandra Halliday (@dance_moves_for_friends on insta).
Bogbean Baby benediction made by my love Una Maria Blyth.
All images courtesy of Eoin Carey