Sanne Peper (Haarlem 1963) lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She majored in visual arts and photography at ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in Arnhem and Enschede. Her practice as a photographer rests on two pillars with, on the one hand, commissioned work as a theater photographer and, on the other, long-term work on autonomous projects in which she relates to the world at large.
As a visual artist she creates subjective renderings of a (possible) history of places in urban areas as well as portrayals of the sublime: wonderful but dreadful examples of nature such as the dystopian Trinity site near Los Alamos, USA; the post-apocalyptic area around Chernobyl, Ukraine; the political landscape of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan; Gaza and the occupied territories, Palestine; the ghost-ridden, “Christ-haunted” landscapes of the Deep South of the United States.
Full cv here
THEATRE PHOTOGRAPHY [Work:]
As a theatre photographer she works for numerous theater companies based in The Netherlands and Belgium including Dood Paard, Oostpool, Aluin, Theater Rotterdam, De Toneelschuur, De Toneelmakerij, Sonnevanck and Toneelgroep Amsterdam. Her other clients in the cultural sector include Marres, House for Contemporary Culture (Maastricht), the Mediafonds (Amsterdam), the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (The Hague), ArtEZ Fashion Masters (Arnhem), Fashion department of The Gerrit Rietveld Academy, OMA (Rotterdam) and Maison Martin Margiela (Paris).
PROJECTS [Works:]
Peper has always been interested in the unreal, that which lies beneath the surface: the history and context of a place. Or the locus of a particular history. Although her medium is photography, which in itself carries the connotation of objectivity, she chooses subjects that are ambiguous and not easily translated into imagery. Some things, however, are better told than photographed because the magic of a place should be imagined, rather than shown. That’s when she turns to writing.The notion of being able to capture reality in photographs is of course an illusion, but a persistent and interesting one: a photograph will always suggest that what it shows was in fact there. Peper’s work reflects her conviction that there is no such thing as the history or the truth and that any knowledge we have of the past lies in a subjective fabrication of what may have happened someplace, sometime. History exists by virtue of specific interpretations and projections and is thus politically, morally and religiously biased. In fact, that is exactly what her work is about: how a (possible) history of a place or event, influences and distorts one’s perception.
Sanne Peper
T +31(0)6 25377620
Credits
Design: Michaël Snitker
Programming: Studio RGB
Typeface: Suisse Int’l Condensed
Supported by
Mondriaan Fund
Website made possible by
Fonds Kwadraat
Copyright © 2024 Sanne Peper