Hey Sweet Pea

“A strange sort of nothing is destroying everything”, speaks a person, reading from a script. In her invocation of The NeverEnding Story, Alee Peoples reimagines the film’s central tension, the fight against dark, unknowable forces, updated for the 2020s. As lines from the fantasy classic are recited, their sentiments feel particularly prescient in the context of the pandemic and California wildfires. Analogue images reminiscent of home movies evoke nostalgia for an idealised American childhood as references to climate collapse underpin the film’s narrative. Imbued with a sense of play throughout, its existential grapplings are held together by the warm, reassuring voice of the artist’s mother, spoken from the body of a friend. (Myriam Mouflih)

Alee Peoples maintains a varied artistic practice that involves screen-printing, sewing, sculpture and film. She is inspired by pedestrian histories, pop song lyrics and invested in the hand-made. Currently living in Los Angeles, she has taught youth classes at Echo Park Film Center and shown her work at artist-run spaces GAIT, elephant and Insert Press. Her films have screened at numerous festivals, museums and artist-spaces including SFMoMA, Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Pompidou Center, Dirt Palace and The Nightingale. And together with Mike Stoltz she organizes Arroyo Seco Cine Club, an experimental screening series in Hermon Park.

Hey Sweet Pea (2023), Standing Forward Full (2020), Decoy (2017), Spotlight On A Brick Wall [in collaboration with Mike Stoltz] (2016), If You Can’t See My Mirrors, I Can’t See You (2016), Non-Stop Beautiful Ladies (2015), Untitled (2014), Waxing and Milking (2014), Them Oracles (2012), The Root That Ate Roger Williams (2011), One New Message (2010), Boys of Summer (2009), Lonelyville (2009), Spread Eagle (2009), Crowning Glory (2008), Container (2008), David Buys An Ice Cream (2008), Three Chances (2007), Odd Fellows (2006)