Peer presented Emotionarama, an installation and listening room developed by Andro Semeiko in collaboration with actors Siân Phillips and Bill Bingham, author Zinovy Zinik and musician Capitol K. Visitors were invited to listen to pre-recorded readings of the book throughout the day whilst inhabiting an installation conducive to evoking emotions.

Emotionarama presents a range of artists’ ideas that are described in an overtly emotional or demonstrative manner through short pieces of creative writing. Participants were invited to produce a text that defined their imaginative and mental processes whilst creating an artwork. For example, some have chosen to record a method of thinking behind the production of an existing piece, while others discuss a concept for an unmade artwork in a reflective manner, and/or its materiality, texture, colour, shape, size, and content.

The book includes contributions by Polly Apfelbaum, Abel Auer, Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press, Kerstin Brätsch, Matt Copson, Liu Ding, Gerasimos Floratos, Andy Holden, Alexander James Pollard, Anna K.E., Ghislaine Leung, Jesper List Thomsen, Florian Meisenberg, Mike Nelson, Alicia Paz, David Raymond Conroy, Lindsay Seers, Andro Semeiko, Yuko Shiraishi, Amy Sillman, Cally Spooner, The Confraternity of Neoflagellants (Norman James Hogg and Neil Mulholland), Mark Titchner, Tris Vonna-Michell, Yu-Chen Wang, and Vicky Wright.

Emotionarama stems from Semeiko’s Peer Residency in 2013, where he started to explore the relationship between emotions and artist’s practice, and which led him to an exhibition An Artist’s Workshop for Unveiling Emotions in collaboration with Sally O‘Reilly at BALTIC 39.

The opening and book launch occurred on Friday 20 August 2021, where Peer hosted an evening of book signing with the editors Andrew Hunt and Andro Semeiko, and the collaborating artists. There was also a reading of extracts from the book by actors Siân Phillips and Bill Bingham.