is a New York-based video artist and curator creating experimental, feminist work spanning over two decades. Her films — in which she acts as both videographer and performer — merge femininity, anarchistic themes, ritual, and sensuality through a rich visual language of recurring symbols, primarily using VHS. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including solo shows at MoMA PS1 and the
Bill Hodges Gallery. She holds a BS in Graphic Design from the Art Institute of Portland and completed a residency at the School of Visual Arts before studying performance under Marina Abramovic at MoMA PS1. She currently serves on the curatorial committee at the Millennium Film Workshop and the board of advisors at the New York Film-makers’ Cooperative.

Madeleine McHale: Do you ever feel like you need to stay a little bit detached from yourself? I find it quite difficult to insert myself into my artwork because I feel like it should have this intrinsic value without the person who’s created it.

Erica Schreiner: I feel one of the most important things I can do is be as vulnerable and as real and authentically myself as I can be. I feel like when you really go in and you find that vulnerability then that’s what makes it universal. How much are men going to relate to my videos? I’m thinking about that. I think no matter who you are, with all your specificities, if you’re finding something true, people, it’ll be theirs too.

MM: How do you think about creating “unpalatable” art?

ES: I really enjoy being unpalatable. You know, in this world everything is so palatable and it’s boring and it’s just so quantified and commercialized and you know my favorite stuff is stuff that upsets people or is edgy or if you if you can get a reaction of disgust that’s amazing. I have videos where I’m licking menstrual blood off my hands or eating the butterflies. Those two [films] really upset people. People will walk out of them and when it happens, I just feel so much—I don’t know what you would say—pride or satisfaction.

MM: Are you more ‘I don’t know how it’s going to end’ and then you start the filming? Or by the time you put yourself in front of the camera, you know what’s going to happen? How orchestrated is it?

ES: It has changed. When I was doing the project with pink hair, I would just have an idea, and I would turn on the camera and then go where it went and film it all in one take. And then the films after that, I started to really write an outline and was very methodical and precise. Like some of the videos, even though it’s with symbols, there’s such clear storytelling.

And now, I’m doing something kind of like that, but a bit looser. Where I’ll have this idea and this inspiration and I’ll think “I’m going to shoot this.” But I let myself take three months to make a video; I’m not rushing it. If after I film a scene or two, and something new happens in my life to that experience that I am trying to portray, then I’ll film a new unexpected thing. I let the process of making it inform the experience and the experience inform the video. It’s very circular.

MM: Do you feel like you’re a different character in your films, or do you really feel like it’s a mirror to yourself?

ES: I feel like it’s me. It’s like the deepest, truest part of me. But in every video, there’s a different me. One of the things I want to convey with the whole body of work is that we are all this complex. Like, I’m not just Erica here having a conversation, being a normal person, you know, but there’s all this other stuff. I feel like when I make the videos, its more… of a soul reflection, you know? And I’m trying to find this deep ethereal beauty that might not be everyday Erica, you know?

MM: Do you think that’s the goal in your artwork? Vulnerability?

ES: Yeah. There are a lot of goals. Vulnerability is a big goal. Another goal is making art as a woman. It feels important to me to age naturally and show the whole life of a woman, and not in some kind of preserved, perfect way. I think those films where I’m younger are going to mean more when I’m older, and you have this thing to compare it to. But when you’re just 20 and cute and you’re making films about yourself, it doesn’t hold a lot of depth, you know? And so, another goal is for people to see the work and think “I can make art too.” I really want to inspire people to make their own art.

MM: Do you consider the female/male gaze when you make your films?

ES: I’m turning the camera on myself. This is how I’m choosing to see myself; this is how I’m choosing to portray myself. Every bit of this that you’re seeing is my choice: the editing, the lighting, the camera, the performance. This is the female gaze, and I just am completely owning the image. I have my own unfortunate patriarchal conditioning. I might be looking through my own lens, but it doesn’t wipe that clean. I’m still a part of the society I grew up in. So that’s still in there. I catch myself in that sometimes where I’m like “there really is a third person like perspective.” I don’t know why that’s such a shocking feeling sometimes, but I’m like, wow, people are really seeing me as a woman.

MM: Is that how you view your practice, this world building experience?

ES: Yeah. I have this world and I have to figure it out, as I’m conceptualizing a new video, what can live in that world. I know, for instance, I will shoot it on VHS. That’s a part of that world. I have all my regular symbols. And then I started thinking, I really want to shake things up and add a new symbol, a symbol that isn’t so feminine. Instead of a butterfly or a piece of fruit, I decided—and it just arrived today actually—I wanted to use rope as a new symbol. I bought this huge rope, the rope itself is like two inches thick and it’s heavy. I don’t totally know where I’m going to go with this, but I want to carry it around. It’s endless what rope could mean ... I keep writing “carry the ropes.” Because you’re carrying what ties you down, in a sense. That’s how I think about it. Depending on how you swing it, it can be positive or negative, or a burden or a release. It can tie you up, but it can also tie one thing to another thing. I’m only at the very beginning of understanding ropes.

MADELEINE MCHALE is a Paris-based multi-media artist whose practice explores the limits and boundaries of the body through sculpture, drawing, and installation. Drawing on a technical anatomy background, her work decodes the systems of the human figure to question how we define and qualify “body.” She completed her BA in Business Administration at Northeastern University in 2024 before pursuing formal art studies at Paris College of Art.