Peggy Ahwesh

Peggy Ahwesh (born 1954 in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania) is an American experimental filmmaker and video artist. She received her B.F.A. at Antioch College. A true bricoleur, her tools include narrative and documentary styles, improvised performance and scripted dialogue, sync-sound film, found footage, digital animation, and crude Pixelvision video. Her work is primarily an investigation of cultural identity and the role of the subject in various genres. Her interests include: women, sexuality and feminism; genre; reenactment; artists' books. Her works have been shown worldwide, including in San Francisco, New York, Barcelona, London, Toronto, Rotterdam, and Creteil, France. Starting in 1990, she has taught at Bard College as a Professor of Film and Electronic Arts. Her teaching interests include: experimental media, history of the non-fiction film, and women in film.
Career.
Peggy Ahwesh went to Antioch College, where she became enamored with the works of radical artists and filmmakers like Paul Sharits, Tony Conrad, Carolee Schneeman and Joyce Wieland. After college, she returned to her hometown of Cannonsburg, where she began her film career working on Super 8 film. She thought Cannonsburg was a small industrial town that offered a freeing artistic feel. During the 1970s, she became involved with the local punk rock scene, and would create short films with her friends documenting the punk bands.
Following this, she began working at The Mattress Factory—a large art warehouse in Pittsburgh—where she began her own film series. One of her first guests was filmmaker George A. Romero. She began to show his work locally and befriended Romero's crew. By 1982, she began to work her way into the industry as a production assistant on feature films on Romero's films. There, she met good friends Natalka Voslakov and Maggie Strosser. Ahwesh claims Romero to be a huge influence on her as he was knowledgeable on race, gender, and independent films. Soon, Ahwesh joined Pittsburgh Filmmakers as a programmer. She also wrote grants and collaborated with local clubs and the University of Pittsburgh. In 1980, Ahwesh did a big group show of local filmmakers. She liked the idea of group shows because they got everybody involved.
By 1983, she created what is known as The Pittsburgh Trilogy—three films made back to back that documented the lives of her friends during the summer of 1983. Ahwesh claims the three films: Verite Opera (1983), Paranormal Intelligence (1983), and Nostalgia for Paradise (1983) are not diary films, narratives or documentaries but rather "portraits" of her friends. The three films helped explore Ahwesh's interest in her friends and helped answer the questions of what kind of relationship does one have with a person, what kind of relationship does the camera have with a person, how do you shoot positive and negative space and what is it about people that makes them interesting? Ahwesh was not aware that she had copied the name for the trilogy from another experimental filmmaker, Stan Brakhage.
In 1990, she received recognition for her film "The Deadman" (1990) due to her use of 16mm opposed to her favored Super 8. In 2001, Ahwesh took her art to another level by using footage from the game Tomb Raider in her experimental piece "She Puppet" (2001), which explored female identity and the evolution of technology.
In 1990, she began teaching at Bard College. Currently, she is Professor Emeritus of Film and Electronic Art while pursuing her own projects.