Hello My Friend

Hello My Friend by Alee Peoples with an Essay by Ekrem Serdar is being published to accompany the exhibition Hello My Friend by Alee Peoples March 24 - May 21, 2023 at General Projects in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. Alee Peoples is an innovative multimedia artist whose work explores the intersections of text, pattern, and visual communication. Her work is like a Rubik’s Cube, deceptively simple and fascinating. Shooting Super 8 and 16mm in her film work and using repurposed fabric and materials in her textile work, Peoples transforms everyday objects into unique, abstract narratives that explore the absurdities and banalities of our contemporary imagination. Elements of a cosmic aesthetic run throughout her work, bringing her handcrafted look to life. Her work engages in a fierce form of play, grappling with meaning instead of grasping for it. Alee Peoples maintains a varied artistic practice that involves screen-printing, sewing, sculpture and film. Currently living in Los Angeles, she has taught youth classes at Echo Park Film Center and shown her sculpture and film work at GAIT, 4th Wall and Elephant Art Space. Peoples has shown her films at numerous festivals including Edinburgh, Images (Toronto) and New York Film Festival, and at museums and spaces including SFMoMA, Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Pompidou Center, Dirt Palace (Providence) and The Nightingale (Chicago). Started in 2022, Arroyo Seco Cine Club is a thematically programmed film series she co-curates with Mike Stoltz. She is inspired by pedestrian histories, pop song lyrics and is invested in the handmade. Ekrem Serdar (he, him) is a curator, writer, and arts administrator. As the curator at Squeaky Wheel he organizes exhibitions, public programming, and residency programs. Recent exhibitions and projects include Jenson Leonard: Gland Prix; SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY: i would’ve said goodbye if i thought you loved me back; and Punctures: Textiles in Digital and Material Time. His writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Millennium Film Journal, 5harfliler, among other publications. He is the recipient of a Curatorial Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. He is from Ankara, Turkey.