Peter Spanjer

View an extract of Peter Spanjer’s ‘Every Piece of You’.

In his contemporary video art piece ‘Every Piece of You’, Nigerian artist Peter Spanjer was inspired by his own discovery of meditation and ASMR, specifically for black women. In particular, Spanjer chose these videos for their demographic of the most considerably vulnerable in society, black females. During this discovery, the reassurance he felt in his research of meditation ended up drawing parallels between him and his work. Importantly, his video works became a place in which to provide meditative space for those unable to find calm otherwise.

Within his previous video work ‘Make Me Safe’, Spanjer focuses on themes of sensuality and fragility, in contrast to masculine ideals. In a similar vein, ‘Every Piece of You’ embodies these realms of sensuality explored, with an accompanying ASMR style audio. The video piece transcends quickly between differing images in between moments of stillness. He pairs this variety of collage-like clips with a rhythmic and fast beating soundtrack. The pace of the video becomes hypnotic and alluring as the warped voices reverberate in multiple echoing layers. Additionally, in this piece Spanjer explores these different sounds and narratives to depict a distinction of what they mean or could be interpreted as by viewers. Consequently, ‘Every Piece of You’ offers a form of resistance, ultimately challenging the viewer’s perception. In many ways, each clip in the video pieces together somewhat unrelated imagery and visual narrative.

In particular, his contemporary video art piece portrays an urgency visible in the current racial crisis. As well as this, the piece hones in on the artist’s personal explorations into anxiety, expression and self. Above all, in this work he proposes questions of breaking free from these restrictions and constraints of perception.