Sandra Peters

Life

After receiving her secondary school degree (Abitur) in Hanover (Germany), Peters was a visiting student of art for two years at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, followed by training as a goldsmith at the Knauth & Hagen jewelry gallery (Birgitta Knauth, Schmuck) in Bonn. She continued her training as an artist first with Professor A. R. Penck at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and later at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden with Professor Ulrike Grossarth (general artistic work) and Professor Martin Honert (sculpture), receiving her diploma in 2001 and then studying for two additional years as a master student. From 1999-2000 Peters was teaching as visiting faculty in the art department of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. When she returned to Germany she completed two internships in the field of architectural model making and was working in the firm of Monath & Menzel in Berlin and was following then the team of WERK5 in Berlin, Germany. Right afterwards Peters worked as a freelancer for the architects Barkow Leibinger in Berlin, (Germany). From 2004-2007 she was the head of the model-shop for the architects Sauerbruch Hutton in Berlin, (Germany). In 2011 and 2012 Peters got invited to teach as visiting faculty at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.

Work

Sandra Peters work as an artist is located thematically at the intersection of art and architecture. For her, the relationship of human beings to material and their location within our world or society can best be considered in connection with architecture. Peters is interested in how the spaces (both buildings and urban spaces) in which we live influence our perception of the world.

In her work, the theme of space becomes the point of departure for her reflections, which she makes it possible to experience situationally by using various artistic media (sculpture, installations, sound, moving images, film, performances). One way to approach this is through shifts in architectural elements taken from a different context and placed in the exhibition space. Through this displacement and the new spatial situation that results, Peters facilitate an experience in which both previous judgments and habits of seeing, hearing, and moving are called into question. At the same time, her goal is allude to the place or space as such and lay open its structure and the history inscribed in it. Sandra Peters works are conceived in such a way that they establish a counterpoint with the exhibition space. This results in an area of tension in which social conventions are broken down and different perspectives on the contexts in which we live become possible.

Literature