Spotlight - Every Body's Story: "We All Carry So Much Of Our Experiences From The Past, But We All Carry So Much Potential Too."
TW: Discussion of self image and sexual harassment
It is an absolute pleasure to introduce you to Ellen Downes, the founder of Every Body’s Story. Every Body’s Story has the most beautiful origins and an even more beautiful purpose - to help women connect with and celebrate their body through body casting. It was so striking to hear about the healing process that goes hand in hand with the conversation around casting, and I look forward to people learning more about this lesser known, but growing, art form.
So tell me, what does your average day look like?
I’m teaching full time at the moment, I teach Spanish and French, but alongside that I do this. I’m casting three times a week. It’s a lot of work; casting and glossing, alongside doing the promotional work, planning exhibitions and projects, and connecting online with creative creators.
So is this what you want long term? Is this what your end game is?
Yes, I think so. I love teaching so my ideal is actually teaching half time and then doing this half time.
It’s interesting you say that, so many of the artists I’ve talked to actually prefer doing part time too. They feel it gives them more freedom.
So, how did you get into body casting? It’s quite a niche thing!
So I had my first body cast at Shambala Festival in 2015 and then, years later, the artist who cast me sent a message out of the blue saying “I found your body cast if you want to come and collect it.” I had this incredible moment where it felt like I met my body. Anyway, I got chatting to this artist and she was telling me about her work and the women she had met, specifically letting me know how she’d done work with women who had mastectomies and how it helped them reflect before and after their surgery, and see their bodies from a new perspective. I just thought it was so interesting, so I asked her to tell me how to do it.
Then I moved to Vietnam and lived there for a for a little while. I would go to the pharmacies and get plaster and, just, on my bedroom floor I would get on the mat with a little kettle and a washing up bowl and start practising with friends. I started making casts then but they weren’t very good, but that’s where I started learning and then, through that, I started seeing this healing process that comes with casting. There is this therapeutic aspect that comes with applying layers, waiting for it harden and lift, and then confronting or connecting with that past self, or your present self, from a new perspective.
You said you realised there was a therapeutic aspect? Can you tell me more?
I just realised that casting, the whole process, is a vehicle for storytelling because you surrender to the process. It allows you to become really comfortable with your body, and through conversation with me. The more I cast as well, the more stories I heard about what so many women go through. I heard all of these things and realised that there aren’t spaces to talk about these things. I mean women told me things they were ashamed of, or that they had never told anyone. I realised that so many women were saying the same thing too, but no one sees that. It’s like no one is talking to each other.
If you don’t mind saying, what were people saying to you?
Sometimes it was about sexual harassment, so it could be dark. There is a lot of shame just from having a woman’s body. Or they would talk about comments that stuck from them, especially from partners; remarks that people just carry and hold inside our naked bodies.
It’s so interesting. I don’t think I appreciated just how integral the talking process is whilst you’re casting. It seems key?
Yes, there is so much healing that comes with body casting.
Why do you think that is? What is the message of body casting?
The thing that keeps me going and motivates me to do it is that I’m helping women connect with and celebrate their bodies. I think that there aren’t enough spaces that can hold these sort of emotions, and I feel I accidentally created a space that can provide that openness and that support.
Also, just on a personal level, I learned so much. I have learned just how diverse our bodies are, and all about our incredible resilience, emotionally and physically. I have also learnt that there is so much power to be gained from sharing; it’s pretty incredible.
I agree! I work in a Boudoir studio alongside the magazine and the ethos is so similar to what you do. It’s a way of capturing your body and creating art of yourself and, almost accidentally, it offers a chance to almost meet and celebrate yourself. It’s really unique, isn’t it?
Totally.
So, I feel like I don’t know lots about the practicalities of casting. What is physically involved? How long does it take, for example?
So, the person will put oil over the area that I am casting and choose a pose. Then I start to apply bandage and warm water layer by layer, moving left to right. The plaster will go from being warm and wet and then it will harden. As it’s doing this, we start taking some time to talk. Then I’ll press around the edges of the cast so that the air comes out and hold onto the cast as the women breathes out. As you breathe out slowly, we move together and it lifts.
It’s amazing because it really captures so much detail, for example you can see tone and stretch marks. You can even see inverted belly buttons which is brilliant. I love how it takes these details like stretch marks, for example, and it makes them into art and honours them.
It sounds like there is such trust being formed between just that physical contact. You’re really sharing a moment with them; it must be so special.
It’s a huge thing that someone is sharing with me. You’re obviously making yourself quite vulnerable to surrender to the process
I get it, it’s very close.
I think it helps that the studio space is so lovely. I have the casts from the women I included in my exhibition from last year and a lot of the clients say that they almost act as company for them during the experience.
I imagine it’s really reassuring?
Yeah, totally. I think there's something comforting about being surrounded by all of these women who've also done the same.
Do you find that everyone who books in to have their body cast has quite big reasons for doing so?
Everyone is so different. It’s quite common for partners to buy it as a present. Also, it’s quite common for women to come through who have reached an age where they think “I want to capture my body as it is now”, for example on milestone birthdays. Women who are pregnant also come a lot.
There was also a woman who came in the other day, and she’s been trying for a baby for a long time and the IVF wasn’t working. She said that, to her, the body cast was a reminder that she’s still there and that she is still powerful. Everyone has their reasons and I think it’s amazing.
I know that there must be countless stories that stay with you, but has there been one moment that you know will always stick with you?
There are so many stories that are so emotional, but something that comes to mind is a woman who had experienced a mastectomy and her daughter had bought her the casting as a present. When she arrived she wasn’t totally sure whether she would go for it, but we spent some time talking beforehand and then she decided she wanted to. When she collected her cast and saw it in gold, she was really, really emotional. She said it was the first time that she’d looked at the new shape of her body and saw any beauty in it. That was a big one.
It’s moments like that where there had been resentment or a deep negative emotion, or maybe even trauma, and then I’m able to present a body that they can see as beautiful. It’s so amazing.
It is amazing! I know we’ve just been talking about how different every story is, but have you sensed that there is one core message that unites everyone?
Yes, so in the book I created, and in the exhibition text in the handout, at the beginning I wrote “I invite you to view the shape of each woman's body, and then read her story and hear her voice. Connect her form to all that it carries and holds and think of its future, and all that it deserves.” I think that is the thing that unites them; every body has a story. And everybody deserves so much. And every story deserves to be heard.
But, also, we all carry so much of our experiences from the past, but we all carry so much potential too.
That’s such beautiful wording, and what you do is beautiful too. It’s capturing the body exactly as it is. You’re just covering it in gold, but it is still your body. It feels slightly magical to be able to see your body as art.
So what work do you have coming up?
Yes! I am so glad you asked! I am doing an exhibition called “MY BODY, MY HOME” which will be made up of 100 women cast in gold. The idea is to have a whole wall that will just be one cast after another. I am going to work with women who have experience of sexual harassment. sexual assault or sexual violence and who want to be cast in gold. The casts will come together to look like a wall of armour. It will be on June 24th to 29th at the Centre Space Gallery in Bristol.
That’s amazing! Are you looking forward to it?
Yes, so excited and very grateful. I’m actually partnering with Yuup to make this happen and we’re going to create a series of events in the evening in the space, so there will be life drawing and different classes, for example yoga spaces. It will be like a mini festival.
Consider us there!!
