Peter Brandt | 'The Chicken Sexer' (2025)

From the ongoing 'Cleave' series (2025 - present)

"Cleave is an ongoing project composed of constructed photographs that explore the role of memory in shaping who I have become—as a man and as an individual—and the part I play in generating and intensifying those memories. The work reflects on the growing role of creativity not only in describing and reassembling memory, but also, inevitably, in creating it.

In searching for myself through the creative act and this misremembered past, I am freed from the task of simply illustrating what I recall—there has been a natural evolution towards experimenting with transposition and transformation; memories and states are transferred to other role players, different timelines get combined, and discovered objects are explored for their resonance until they draw threads to specific memories and conditions, rather than the other way round. Found objects, toys, and constructed sets become stand ins for aspects under investigation, while photography itself provides a medium uniquely suited to straddling the real and the absurd, often compelling the viewer to decide where one ends and the other begins."