Self-Storage is a deeply personal, emotional and immersive experience that invites visitors to reflect on their own memories as they explore a dreamlike environment. Video projections splash and wrap around large and small sculptural modules made up of white cardboard moving boxes I’ve accumulated over the years to display the memories and experiences so hard to let go of. These images include my husband’s work (painter Farrell Brickhouse) and video of our life together in Montauk, Tribeca, Staten Island and finally Hudson, New York. Observers peek inside little cardboard, tin and wood scale models of my past homes to see playful home movies and video diary snippets I’ve shot over the years. In one house I’m teaching my 102-year-old mother how to use Google Glass. In another are AI animations. Inside a 30 year-old cardboard replica of the cabin my husband built in upstate NY are scenes from a video diary filmed in 1998 of times spent in that cabin. Since I shot these videos myself, the subjects speak to the person behind the camera giving visitors the intimate and inclusive feeling of being spoken to directly as well. Scattered within and around the modules are knick knacks and items such as my old french horn, china and silverware.
—Beverly Peterson
As a mature artist, Beverly Peterson doesn’t have a traditional fine arts resume. While still attending Cooper Union, she became a successful NYC restaurateur, owned fishing boats and a small farm, and traveled the world. At the age of 40, she returned to her initial passion of fine arts. The art career she pursued has taken many forms, from intimate and timely award-winning documentaries to Virtual Reality and projection mapping. Yet, always at the core has been her embrace of that magical space where tech and art come together in the pursuit of new forms of storytelling. Her current installation, Self-Storage, uses multiple projectors and video channels bringing together many of the skills she has gathered over the years in this unique form of storytelling. Peterson’s documentaries have been reviewed and featured in national press, broadcast internationally and screened at major festivals including; HBO, PBS, the Sundance Film Festival, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Walker Art Center, The Warhol Museum. In 2020 she retired from her position as Associate Professor in the School of Communication & Media at Montclair State University and currently lives with her husband, painter Farrell Brickhouse in Hudson, NY.
