About
About Every Body’s Story
Every Body’s Story is Bristol’s first body casting studio, founded as a platform to celebrate the bodies of women and non-binary people and share their stories. Every Body’s Story hosts regular body casting workshops and annual exhibitions.
The Story
Body Casting Artist Ellen Downes
Ellen Downes founded Every Body’s Story in 2019 and opened Bristol’s first body casting studio in 2021.
Ellen is a teacher, curator, producer and body casting artist. Her work explores community, social justice and raising the voices of marginalised genders with a focus on storytelling and creative collaboration.
2019 – Founded Every Body’s Story, started commissions from her bedroom via word of mouth
2020 – Exhibition of 18 plaster body casts at QUA. Gallery in Hanoi, Vietnam
2021 – Opened first studio in Bristol, joined Yuup as a host,offering ‘Celebrate your Body’ sessions and taking public commissions, opened exhibition of 30 plaster body casts at Centrespace Gallery
2022 – South West 30 under 30 list, Arts Council DYCP funding to learn to cast in Jesmonite, opened MY BODY, MY HOME exhibition of 100 plaster body casts at Centrespace Gallery
2023 – Event series March-July across Bristol exploring ways we can better connect to our bodies, started offering body casting workshops, opening CENSORED exhibition of 300 golden Jesmonite nipple casts 15-20 September at Centrespace Gallery
“I am so honoured to share my art and this therapeutic process with others. Every Body’s Story is a platform to raise the voices of marginalised genders and create a space for sharing the stories that we are so often forced to carry in silence. Our bodies are perpetually objectified and so for this project I am turning our bodies into objects, on our terms and in a really beautiful, empowering way.”
Ellen Downes
Founder
