RECENT PROJECTS
“Foresting”
2024, in construction
Tree house, permanent installation
Wood, metal, polycarbonate
In 1845, the philosopher Henry David Thoreau built himself a log cabin in the woods of Massachusetts and withdrew from American civilization for two years to write “Walden”, a work of natural philosophy critical of civilization. Inspired by Thoreau, I am building a tree house in collaboration with the architect Olin Petzold in the Onsernone Valley in Ticino, where I also plan to write my book “Deep Sleep” which is critical of civilization, in the deepest seclusion. But Thoreau also plays an important role in my life in other respects. His essay “On the Duty of Disobedience to the State” is considered a pioneer of non-violent resistance and has shaped non-violent civil rights movements like no other work, from Mahatma Gandhi to today's climate activism, of which I see myself as a part. The planned book will be dedicated to the climate catastrophe and our moral duty to actively oppose it. After finishing my book, I will make the tree house available to other authors to write texts that deal with the necessary transformation of our society.
“Stay Grounded”
Since 2022, ongoing
Concept for a lawsuit
Trailer, video, HD, 16/9, colour, 1’39”
In the summer of 2022, the “Clima Now Foundation” announced an open competition with the theme: “Rethinking the Impact of Art – Climate ARTivists Wanted!” I submitted the idea for a lawsuit as an artistic performance. This project was about our cognitive dissonance regarding air travel: we perfectly know about the devastating and deadly damage that air travel provokes and yet continue to fly as if this was normal. The prize money was to be exclusively used for the costs of the lawsuit. The project was rejected by Clima Now in the pre-evaluation phase without any further explanations.
But the project is very much alive. In the spring of 2024, in close collaboration with renowned climate lawyers and scientists, a criminal lawsuit will be filed against the Swiss government under the title “We accuse”. A documentary filmmaker has started to follow the project.
“The Toilet of Venus” after the attack by Mary Richardson in 1914.
“Mary Richardson” (not realised)
2023
Concept for a live performance at the “Fondation Beyeler”
In collaboration with “Renovate Switzerland”.
Soup throwing against paintings has caused a global outcry of indignation. On the one hand, they were condemned as destructive gestures, but on the other, their legitimate concerns were as well recognised: why do our art treasures seem to mean more to us than the future of our children?
After having made a sympathetic statement about the soup throwing on a radio broadcast, I contacted the director of the Fondation Beyeler, to win him for a joint action with Renovate Switzerland.
We suggested to the museum to take the issue of vandalism a step further and, in a covert mission, destroy a clandestine replica of a famous painting by stabbing it (a direct reference to the famous attack on a painting by Diego Velazquez by suffragette Mary Richardson in London in 1914). We wanted to make the worst fears of the cultural elite come true. The plan was to then hold a joint press conference a few days after to announce that the original painting was undamaged but the climate crisis still unsolved. The damaged replica would have been auctioned off in aid of Renovate Switzerland.
Although they liked the idea, the museum ultimately decided against it.
“Business As Unusual” (not realised)
2022
Concept for a poster campaign
In the fall of 2022 the pilot “Arts for Future” of the city of Zurich was looking for projects at the intersection of climate action and art. With a collective of scientists and activists we submitted the idea to use the entire prize money to cover a large part of the city’s billboards during a limited time with key phrases by the 6th IPCC report. The idea was to shed light on the widespread repression and denial of the climate crisis among the population. We wanted to provoke for a short time a reversal of power (since billboards are expensive, science – unlike industry – can’t afford them under normal circumstances). We wanted to bring the museum into the city and the city into the museum. In the end, the jury decided against this project.
“Resist”
Since 2021, ongoing
Performance, Political Combat
In autumn 2021, I was arrested during a street blockade with the civil resistance group “Extinction Rebellion”. Shortly afterwards I became an active member of “Renovate Switzerland”. For a year and a half, I was responsible for developing the campaign's visual language and the action photography. I also participated in numerous actions as a photographer or activist and got arrested several times. I left the campaign in December 2023. As an artist and an activist, it is impossible for me to clearly define the boundaries between the two. However, I can say with certainty that my involvement in non-violent civil resistance has had a strong influence on me and has had a major impact on my political thinking and creative processes.
A woman reads Naomi Kleins “Capitalism vs the Climate” on an iPad which is being charged by the running motor of the camper van.
“Superficial Images”
Since 2006, ongoing
Archival inkjet prints, sizes variable
4-channel projection video, HD, colour, 16/9, 45’06”
Book, Spector Books, Leipzig 2016
„The particularity of Peter Tillessen’s photographic work since his early career lies in its intention to willingly disappoint the public’s expectations, a public eager to discover remarkable, artistically executed photographs.”
Joerg Bader
“Beyond the comedy, there’s something intensely liberating about this work. It’s not just that it pokes fun at the pompous seriousness of so much of fine-art photography. It also uses photography in exactly the kinds of way we often wouldn’t even consider. There are a lot of pictures to be found all around us, and even the shitty ones might tell us something – if, and only if – we approach them with a different mindset.”
Joerg Colberg
Leyla Beck Wester and Winley Marazzi, performing “Whatever” at Helsinki Klub in Zurich.
Whatever
2018, 2021
Live performance
2-channel projection video, HD, 16/9, B/W, 1h 03’
Book, Spector Books, Leipzig 2021
Vinyl record, Noi Records, Zurich 2021
“The structure of the performance arranged by Peter Tillessen and titled “Whatever” seems impressively simple: a male and a female musician are sitting on a stage, playing the guitar for accompaniment and singing two songs; they don‘t do this successively, but simultaneously.”
“Musical puzzles with great power of fascination emerge within the artfully arranged coexistence of two different works in the same space-time.”
Clemens Krümmel
“Cial Drawings”
Since 2013, ongoing
500 Drawings, A4, pencil on paper
Book, Spector Books, Leipzig 2016
Drawing corresponds very well to my need for immediacy. I thus escape the constraints of reality which I confront daily in my dealings with photography and film. There are no restrictions, every conceivable idea can be put on paper in a fast and unfiltered way. I refrain from any self-censorship and work quickly and impulsively. I apply maximum pressure on the pencil, in order to exclude any hesitation to get as swiftly as possible from the idea to the line. My themes range from sketches for artistic projects to abstract motifs to humorous and profound reflections of a philosophical or ecological nature.
“Eco Therapy”
2018
Performance (duration 21 days)
Plastic plate, 20 x 10 cm
We know that we have to act, but we do not do anything – a behaviour that can only be described as highly neurotic and worth to be medically treated. For three weeks, I had attached an official sign of an eco-therapist to the door of my artist‘s residence at the Cité des Arts in Paris (Niels Pete Lester, simply being an anagram of my name). In addition, I published an announcement over the internal distribution channels of the Cité. However, no one responded, nobody came by or made an appointment.
“Cap And Trade”
2018
7 digital drawings, A4, charcoal on paper, unique prints, framed
Politicians are trying in vain to get a grip on global carbon dioxide emissions through emissions trading. I applied this concept to the art world, which is also characterised by enormous waste and overproduction. If a buyer buys one of these certificates, I get money but in return I have to refrain from producing, say, ten drawings, four photographs or one video. The true ecological secret lies in non-production or in negative work.
The certificates were printed with a plotter whose charcoal smudges during the course of the printing process, making them increasingly diffuse and illegible.
“Against Nature”
2018
Literary essay, 47 pages, A4
Hörprobe
In the spring of 2018, I went to Paris for a six-month artist residency with the city of Zurich. There I became aware that the climate and ecological emergency and its existential threat to all life on earth would not allow me to continue making art as if nothing was wrong. I asked myself: what can I actively do to help to avert the emergency? I also asked myself to what extent my art was capable of making a difference. Despairing at the collective cognitive dissonance in society between knowing about the impending climate collapse on the one hand and living as if nothing was wrong on the other, I decided to devote my six months in Paris to writing a literary essay that addresses our everyday collective patterns of repression and denial. The text was completed in August 2018. Excerpts from it were presented in a public reading as part of the Open Studios at the Cité des Arts.
The plan was to publish the essay in book form. But at that very moment Greta Thunberg and “Fridays For Future” entered the political scene. For no one before or since has been able to express the conflict more succinctly and pointedly than her, she made my writing obsolete overnight. Since then, my plan has been to rewrite the book completely.