TERESA PETERS: DISASTROUSFORMS.COM
1 March – 16 April, 2023
Exhibition Opening: Tuesday 14 March, 6-8pm
AV Gallery and Upper Foyer
DISASTROUSFORMS.COM is a body of ceramic and clay works ‘excavated’ from a faux sci-fi disaster. The works are archived on an online platform to explore the thematic of natural disasters, natural history, and the process of archiving itself. Disaster as the mother of revolution. This project was inspired by a field trip to Pompeii with artist Mark Dion and team, and Auckland Museum’s Natural History Collections Online. It is an ode to the ceramics and cosmic post-WWII revolutions of artist Lucio Fontana. DISASTROUSFORMS.COM explores collections to enable collective consciousness, from volcanoes, corals, and fossils, to the quartz in your mobile phone. As Walter Benjamin observed, ‘collections are never finished’.
DISASTROUSFORMS.COM, 2020 is a nomadic online exhibition. It was first presented in Auckland via street posters and screened as a special one-night cosmic event (March 24 2021) on the Auckland Live Digital Stage in Aotea Square. Teresa Peters’ interest in club culture resulted in a collective space of transformation.
DISASTROUSFORMS.COM was created in conversation and curatorial collaboration with curator Dina Jezdic and made with the support of Creative New Zealand. Her essay A MUSEUM PORTAL FOR A PANDEMIC AESTHETIC and DISASTROUSFORMS.COM are archived as a topic at Auckland Museum Collections Online.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Teresa Peters is an artist and a filmmaker in collaboration with film director Florian Habicht. She currently works in clay, ceramics and moving image: ‘Excavating’ primordial totems and navigating pseudo - archaeology as we move through the Anthropocene. Earth bodies, forming and transforming - molten entities in intimate combustion.
In 2021, ECHOES won the Portage Premier Ceramic Award, at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery. It was the first Premier work to be presented as a photograph in the 21-year history of the awards. TIME CRYSTAL, clay and ceramic as digital video, is a finalist this Summer in the Portage 22 Ceramic Awards exhibition. ARTEFACTS, raw clay archived as framed photography, was awarded the Merit award in the Ceramics NZ 60th National Jubilee Exhibition 2021.
Post DISASTROUSFORMS.COM 2020, recent ceramic projects continue navigating quartz as a touchstone into technology and collective AV events. ORB: PLACING INTO VIBRATION, July 2022, was a collaboration with musician Torben Tilly and quartz sound healer Cheryl Farthing at the Audio Foundation. The show included QUARTZ SOUND JOURNEY event—a transformative crystalline experience. It stemmed from MOLTENENTITIES.COM - Notes on moving mountains, as part of From things flow, at RM Gallery & Project Space in July 2021 with Shelley Simpson, Kate van der Drift and Kathryn Tulloch; and including MOLLUSK REFERENCE with Maree Horner. The companion publication From things flow, with essay by Charlotte Huddleston and texts by the artists was launched at RM in July 2022.
Teresa has shown in the Auckland Art Fair and TENT 2021/ 2022 with Mothermother and RM Gallery. On returning from Berlin and New York in 2015, she completed her PGDipFA at Elam School of Fine Arts, and was the Studio One Toi Tu Creative Ceramics Resident in 2019. Her film work has screened widely in international film festivals, including Cannes official selection. Previous exhibitions include: Woodenhead, Unnerved: The New Zealand Project, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, 2010, Who Is Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, at Te Tuhi, 2007, and later at P.P.O.W Gallery, NYC, 2010.
With support from: Creative New Zealand, Media Design School Auckland, the Fletcher Trust Collection, Wellington City Council, Chris & Kathy Parkin and Stout Trust.