Walker and Bromwich's Serpent of Capitalism

Just over an hour to the north of the central belt, Perth Museum and Art Gallery have been quietly building a reputation for staging thought-provoking exhibitions of contemporary art which pose urgent questions. Earlier in the year Saoirse Amira Anis’s group show Mis(sing) Information considered institutional misinformation, reparation and repatriation. Now the gallery hosts the Serpent of Capitalism, a new installation from Glasgow-based artists Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich. 

The serpent, a large-scale inflatable sculpture, fills the floor of one of the Museum’s rooms, while drawings, video and research materials in the adjoining spaces offer provocations to the audience. On the walls hang beautiful large scale drawings of snakes, trees, sea creatures, while two watching eyes stare from the back wall. Through these supplementary works the artists lead us through the shifting and shaping of societies, religions, ideas and beliefs. 

Collaborative duo Walker and Bromwich blend large scale sculptural work with performance and ceremony, inviting audiences to participate in the works and in doing so begin to imagine a better world. This belief that art can be an agent for social and structural change is threaded through their practice. Their Perth installation channels the ancient Serpent Goddess and invites audiences of all ages to consider capitalism’s role within our society and start to create alternative systems. The serpent is an incredibly loaded symbol in cultures around the world - in Judeo-Christian tradition it is synonymous with the fall of man from the Garden of Eden. Within Indigenous Australian culture, the Rainbow Serpent is seen as a creator god or mother of life. Walker and Bromwich use it in that context as creator of life, agent of change. 

Included within the exhibition are two new film works, Possible Dialogues Scotland #2 and The Serpent of Capitalism. These films document events that took place in Walker and Bromwich's expansive artwork, Encampment of Eternal Hope, during last year's COP26, which amplified Indigenous voices at this critical time, bringing people together to collectively find ways to re-align with earth’s living systems. 

Serpent of Capitalism is free to visit, although donations are welcome, and runs in complement to the gallery’s summer show, Sin, which brings together works from the National Gallery collections from the 16th century to the present day exploring the idea of sin in visual art. Artists include Rembrandt, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Jan Steen, Jan Gossaert, Tracey Emin, Ron Mueck, and more. The two exhibitions work side by side, providing a historical context of the origin of sin in western art, alongside the provocation to consider the serpent of capitalism, its effects and maybe its replacement. 

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Walker and Bromwich: Serpent of Capitalism, Perth Museum and Art Gallery, until 30 Oct, free, donations welcome