‘Boomer in a China shop’, invites the participant/ viewer to get inside and drive around in as clumsy a way as they dare, reversing the rules of agency and placing the onus of risk on them.

The work is part of an ongoing series, entitled B-Road Bashers, which explores notions and experiences of mobility (social, economic, creative) and asks who gets to be visible and have agency in public spaces?

The artwork is made from a mobility scooter I transformed into a fairground dodgem, featuring custom built modifications (such as blue LED’s, front and back lights and a sensor that makes the sound of breaking glass as the scooter approaches objects).

I painted Jeremy Clarkson on the back in a fairground air-brushed style. Painting the former Top Gear presenter on an object that moves at low speed levels designed for people with mobility challenges, explores the manifold meanings of ‘mobility’ in a different light.

These visual puns layer meanings pertaining to speed and mobility as a metaphor for progress.

Clarkson is painted as a kind of generational Icon, which takes a wry dig at macho hero culture, outdated notions of modernity and considers how these ways of moving through and operating in the world have had questionable effects (on personal and environmental health).

The play here also extends to the art world, a field of practice that is slowly opening doors to artists with a range of lived experiences, but not quickly enough. The title, ‘Boomer in a China shop’, highlights these themes.

Handing over the keys to viewers /participants provoked a number of interesting reactions. Some people were overjoyed to get inside and test their own boundaries within an art gallery (with one visitor commenting on how they didn’t realise art in a gallery could be so anarchic).

Some people were reluctant initially due to fearing that it would be disrespectful towards people who use mobility scooters. One person shared that when they pressed the horn to pass crowds and were then met with apologetically stiff, awkward and ‘othering’ responses. They reflected on how these same crowds altered their response when they clocked that the person driving and the object itself is playful, reflecting on how uncomfortable this felt.

One viewer/participant described how a decade ago they broke their back in multiple places and spent a year using mobility scooters describing how the experience transformed a period of his life that he’d tried to forget into something else.

The scooter remained in the gallery for 3 days and endured a number of crashes, requiring me to conduct some bodily repair and maintenance. I used broad black tape to make visible repairs and over the duration of the show, the scooter seemed frailer.

Visitors became more and more tentative to push the limits on the speed button and there were no crashes with other artworks beyond the PV.

The artwork impacted the gallery context more broadly, transforming it from functioning as a viewing space, site of spectacle or decoration and creating a mood of improvisation and experimentation, drawing on DIY and Rave culture that often breathes energetic fuel into my work.

The work is part of an ongoing series, entitled B-Road Bashers, which explores notions and experiences of mobility (social, economic, creative) and asks who gets to be visible and have agency in public spaces?