Sandra Peters makes art that engages the architecture of specific exhibition sites in a contrapuntal dialogue, unlocking experiences that let us question preconceived beliefs and entrenched habits of seeing, hearing, moving, and being in space. Her sculptures pick up on historic sculptural and architectonic paradigms, which she modifies and places in constellations such that the presence of the works is interwoven with glimpses of past cultural formations. Addressing us in our bodily reality, her art sustains a situated experience, while also charting fields of associations that have a bearing on our positions, actual as much as imagined, in the world. Peters pursues these concerns both in sculpture strictly conceived and in a range of other media and explores a variety of formats (sound installation, moving image, film, performance).
From 2009 to 2012, Peters undertook extensive studies into the oeuvre of Rudolph Schindler, an endeavor that bore fruit in a number of works that take inspiration from the architect’s buildings. In 2013, she began to probe various questions that had arisen during her work on these projects. With the sculpture Interface No. 1, realized in 2012, she embarked on a multifaceted investigation of the form of the cube as such. Later, she gathered initial ideas for a translation of Interface No. 1 into acoustic structures that the audience would experience in an installation with the title SonicCube (2014–). In the course of her examination of the form of the cube, Peters has devoted particular attention to its eleven nets, permutations that served as the point of departure for the sculptures Pandora’s Box (2016) and Untitled (Blaue Blume) (2017).
Works such as Tango (2013–16) and Zabriskie Point (2013) have a basis in architecture, while also reflecting specific cultural or historic contexts. They are conceived as situations to which the viewer is encouraged to relate by contemplating or moving around them. Both works are composed of different elements whose arrangement in the space conveys an impression of a cohesive ensemble, addressing itself not just to the eye but also to the sense of touch and sensorimotor experience.