PROVIDENCE by Erica Schreiner | USA | 2026

Duration: 00:07:11

After reconnecting with a lover not seen in over twenty years, a woman films herself in her apartment, reflecting on the distance between who she was at twenty and who she’s become at forty-two.

DIRECTOR, WRITER : Erica Schreiner

CONTACTS / LINKS : www.ericaschreiner.com   @erica.schreiner 

Filmed in Erica’s NYC apartment, Providence is an experimental VHS film that takes us inside the diary of her mind as she reflects on reconnecting with a romantic partner not seen in over twenty years. First meeting at age twenty and reuniting at forty-two, Erica examines how time, distance, and personal change shape intimacy and memory, as the two now live on opposite coasts. Through performance and reflection, the film explores loneliness, middle age, and the importance of being seen by someone who remembers who you once were.

Director’s statement
I make experimental, feminist video art. Filming on VHS, while performing before the camera, I invent worlds that are ethereal, sensual and ritualistic. I combine video and performance to tell stories using symbols and allegory. 

My visual language is constructed from carefully studied symbols like butterflies, fruit, flowers, eggs and personal objects, which experience a metamorphosis. 

Investigating the complexity and power of femininity through the female gaze, I urge the viewer to consider alternate realities from the current cultural paradigm and to locate peace within a technologically inundated and capitalistic/patriarchal culture. 

Themes in my work involve healing from trauma, concepts of god, the need to return to nature, uncovering the secrets of age and love. Overarching artistic goals are to connect to the viewer through personal vulnerability, aid in healing and to remind the viewer of their artistic potential. 

Influenced by Maya Deren, Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, the Riot Grrrl music movement and Czechoslovak New Wave cinema, I found my personal aesthetic through shooting on a VHS camera in my bedroom alone. I explore performance as a medium when a live audience is not present, but treated cinematically, through the process of editing and playback.

Bio
Erica Schreiner is a New York–based experimental video and performance artist who has worked with VHS for over twenty years. Performing before the camera, Erica creates allegorical, ethereal works that merge femininity, anarchistic themes, ritual and sensuality. Using symbolic materials and immersive sets, she creates surreal, intimate environments with a distinct personal style.

Erica’s films have exhibited internationally in Museums, galleries and film festivals, including The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, Bill Hodges Gallery in New York, and Nick Knight’s SHOWstudio.

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