Peter Hanmer
Programme:
Art - PhD/MPhil
Start date:
September 2025
Mode of study:
Full time
Research title:
Futurama: Modelling Dystopia
Biography
Sculptor and installation artist Peter Hanmer draws on history, politics, philosophy, and storytelling to create allegorical, fantastical dioramas, chiefly in miniature. These reflect his interest in the power of art as a cultural and political critique, presenting intricately crafted worlds imbued with meaning.
Hanmer holds a Masters of Fine Art with Distinction from Newcastle University. He is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors, winner of the Gillian Dickinson North East Young Sculptor of The Year Award 2017 and the Air Gallery Award 2023. Select exhibitions include; Seeking Armageddon (SOLO), Newcastle Art Centre, Newcastle Upon Tyne (2022), Plato’s Lair (SOLO), Cheeseburn Sculpture (2018), What the Others Built (three-man show), Vane Gallery, Gateshead (2025), New Light Summer Exhibition of the North, Sunny Bank Mills, Leeds (2025), The Manchester Contemporary (2023) and Digital Citizen – The Precarious Subject, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2019).
Research interests
- Dioramas
- Political Allegory
- Satire
- Metonymy
Hanmer holds a PGCE in Young People and Adults with Distinction.
He previously taught on the Fine Art BA (Hons) and One Award Access to HE Diploma in Art and Design programmes at Newcastle College.
Research
Research
Hanmer's practice-led research aims to assess and develop the physical diorama’s effectiveness as a tool of cultural and political critique, using the lens of modelled dystopia to do so. Plato, Descartes, and today’s computer simulation builders generate scepticism about the credibility of our ordinary experience. They raise doubts about how we can distinguish reality from substitutes made of shadows, dreams, or virtual realities. His project intends to elevate the medium through collaborative practice and the development of a new metonymical language of figuration within diorama practices.
Related links
Artworks
