“Rules For Leaving A Small Town”
Beth Rose Caird
6 Mar → 2 Apr 2015

We had been heading for it all afternoon; every time we decided to do something out of doors, we begin the day with a sense of exuberant good health, followed by a slow intoxication of danger. Often it ends mildly. Somebody barefoot steps on broken glass, or one of the beer drinkers cuts himself on the tin. One year, somebody’s guest from Palo Alto actually inhaled a cinder of his marijuana. Other times, someone missteps serving at tennis, falls, turns grey. In every case, it winds up in the emergency room. When this happens, it is always past four in the afternoon. Whoever is hurt, if he is conscious, apologises.

— Renata Adler

Beth Rose Caird's video essay Rules For Leaving A Small Town follows the narrative of returning home to family in upstate Maine, USA to attend the scattering of a deceased matriarchal figures ashes. Shot over two years using footage from a range of videos, Caird has intertwined narration and subtitles based on written correspondence with collaborator Aodhan Madden. Rules For Leaving A Small Town approaches the form of video essay as a collage. By layering images and footage, subtitles and soundscapes, this new work is a reflection on the interiority afforded to women artists and self-identification as an artist. This experimental film with loose narrative threads focuses on intimacy between family and friends as a way to discuss the political position of feminist artists.