Danielle Dean’s Hemel explores the history of the artist's hometown, Hemel Hempstead, as a planned community under the New Towns Act of 1946. The work’s central reference is a 1957 sci-fi horror B-movie, also shot in the town, about the arrival of a non-human entity that infiltrates the minds of residents and endangers life with a toxic black slime. Playing a composite character based on herself and the B-movie’s detective protagonist, Dean’s vantage point brings together real and imagined worlds, both past and present.

Filmed on 16mm with an ensemble of non-actors and family members, Hemel blurs science fiction and documentary to expand a critical reading of the colonial overtones of the original movie, while recasting its visual language to consider the race, class, and labour dynamics of a small English town in the post-Brexit context. As Dean excavates recent events, historical archives, and personal histories that have transformed Hemel Hempstead, an encroaching dark flood, a growing shadow, and a rising plume of smoke build layers of mystery throughout the work. Rows of identical housing, uniformed workers, and emptied lots signal an eerie tone within the mundane, drawing connections between post-war ideals of the development corporation that established the town, and the mega-corporations that shape both industry and life today.