The Pier Trust was started in 1997 by Anne Beech, Alex Sainsbury and Juliet Steyn, soon joined by Andrew Brighton. In 1998 they invited Ingrid Swenson MBE to be its Director, who led the organisation until 2021. The Pier Trust took up affordable office space in the old Shoreditch Town Hall from where they produced public projects in various locations. The name Peer was soon implemented under Swenson, establishing Peer as a critically acclaimed arts organisation that offered artists support at key moments in their practice.
In 2002, Peer secured local authority premises in the form of a shop unit in Arden Estate on Hoxton Street, located next to the post office and opposite Hackney Community College, where it remains to this day. In 2015, Swenson led the organisation through an ambitious capital redevelopment project that was completed by Trevor Horne Architects. The project transformed Peer’s shopfront to include a 10-metre-wide glass façade to bring its work onto the street and implemented Khadija’s Garden, a public green space named in memory of artist and previous Peer employee, Khadija Mohammadou Saye, also known as Ya-Haddy Sisi Saye, who was tragically killed in the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.
As part of this project, London Fieldworks were commissioned to produce Spontaneous City: Hoxton, a 10 metre long permanent installation for Khadija’s Garden and Turner-prize winning artist Chris Ofili, produced Peer’s freestanding pedestal clock, Black Hands.
Over the years, Peer has developed and delivered a strong body of commissions presented as exhibitions by artists at critical stages of their practice and commissioned several public realm projects in Shoreditch and Hackney. At the core of Peer’s local work is our Ambassador Programme, which was launched in 2017 and continues to this day.
Since 2022, and under the Directorship of Ellen Greig, Peer continues to uphold its commitment to being in dialogue with its local context, and invites artists and audiences to explore the role that art can play in interrogating some of the most pressing issues of our time. Peer remains an internationally acclaimed arts charity with a local focus and is widely known for its experimental and risk taking programme.
Visit our archive for more information on our past projects.
