Peter Treherne is an artist-filmmaker who creates ethnographic fantasies with rural communities. His work has been exhibited in galleries, museums and festivals internationally including the Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Barbican, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, CPH:DOX and Cinéma du Réel. His work has been funded by Arts Council England.
He has recently completed Matter of Britain, which documents an English country village’s quest for the Holy Grail. The artwork combines recordings of agricultural labour across the four seasons with community performances of the Arthurian Wasteland mythology.
Treherne was born in East Sussex, which remains the principal site of his artistic output. He studied Medieval History and English Literature at the University of St Andrews and Film Aesthetics at the University of Oxford. He was founder and director of the Slow Film Festival, an organisation dedicated to sharing durational art with rural audiences. As director, he collaborated with the British Council and MUBI to exhibit work from artists including James Benning, Babette Mangolte and Kevin Jerome Everson. He remains a trustee of the organisation.