The Mystical and the Mineral in the Work of Suzanne Treister
Join curator and researcher Laura Sillars for an enlightening talk on crystals, digital technologies and the alchemical in Suzanne Treister’s work.
Tickets for this event are strictly limited – we recommend booking early to avoid disappointment.
Suzanne Treister (b. 1958) has been a pioneer in digital, new media, and web-based media art since the late 1980s. Often spanning several years, her projects comprise fantastic reinterpretations of given taxonomies and histories, whether corporate, military, or paranormal. Working across the permeable boundary separating the frontiers of scientific inquiry from mystical revelation, her projects interrogate relationships between emerging technologies, society and alternative belief systems to suggest unseen forces that shape our present reality and have implications for the future that we are only beginning to understand.
Treister studied at St Martin’s School of Art, London (1978-1981) and Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (1981-1982) and currently lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include solo and group shows at: Tate Modern, UK (2024); 14th Shanghai Biennale (2023); Helsinki Biennial (2023), High Line, New York (2022); 7th Athens Biennale; Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz, Poland (2021), Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2020); Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; 16th Istanbul Biennial (2019); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015). Recent Commissions and Awards include: Digital Commission, Serpentine Galleries, London, England (2019); COLLIDE International Award, CERN Geneva/FACT UK (2018); The Spaceships of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France (2013-22). Treister’s work is held in private and public collections including Tate Britain; Science Museum, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź, Poland and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna.
Laura Sillars’ academic research focuses on strategies and tactics employed by visual artists whose work critiques aspects of contemporary civic society. She focuses on a small number of case studies on artists who directly investigate the social, geo-physical and economic infrastructure of technology. The material she explores has clear art historical precedents; it draws from mystical, spiritual and Romantic traditions as well as from material developed within the field of techno-science and popular culture.