Peter Born is a director, composer and visual designer who works at the intersection of dance, performance and installation. He has created work at MoMA, the Young Vic, the Berlin Biennial, the Doris Duke Foundation, the High Line, the New Museum, the Wiener Festwochen, the Tate Modern and the Loophole of Retreat at the Venice Biennial. In collaboration with the artist Okwui Okpokwasili, he founded the company Sweat Variant which has created multiple performance works, including most recently “my tongue is a blade” (2025 Irish Museum of Modern Art), “let slip, hold sway” (2025 Whitney Museum), and “adaku, part 1: the road opens” (2023 Brooklyn Academy of Music, ICA Boston, REDCAT). Previous work includes “Sitting on a Man’s Head” (2019), “Adaku’s Revolt” (2019), “at the anterior edge” (2018), “when I return, who will receive me” (2016), “Bronx Gothic (The Oval)” (2014).
Four of Peter’s collaborations have garnered New York Dance Performance “Bessie” Awards, “pent up, a revenge dance” (2009), “Bronx Gothic” (2013),“Poor People’s TV Room” (2017) and “he his own mythical beast” (2018) with David Thomson. Additional work as a set and lighting designer includes “The Venus Knot” (2017), “Chimera” (2017), and “Vessel” (2023) with David Thomson, and “rite/riot” (2014) and “El Capitan Kinglady” (2016) with Nora Chipaumire.
Peter’s work as a commercial art director and prop stylist has been featured in video and photo projects with Vogue, Estee Lauder, Barney’s Co-op, Bloomingdales, Old Navy, “25” magazine, The Wall Street Journal and No Strings Puppet Productions. He is a former New York public high school teacher, itinerant floral designer, corporate actor-facilitator, video maker and furniture designer. He’s a proud dad.
Collaborative visual artworks by Born and Okpokwasili have been featured in exhibitions around the world and are in private and institutional collections, including the Whitney Museum and the Hammer Museum. In 2019, they released an album featuring songs from their performance work entitled “day pulls down the sky”. Through their company Sweat Variant, Born and Okpokwasili are creating a network of mutual support among artists, through programs such as their Threading Residency and their ASAP funding program. This work has been recognized with institutional support from the Mellon Foundation.
