Brad Butler

The Exception and the Rule throws its own site, narrative and production into question, particularly through use of direct citations, its ambiguous application of fictional elements, and through a use of text and spoken English or Urdu. Though micro-repetitions of sounds or words become an aggravating aural presence within the film, there is never a point of repetition or return within its wider framework; one cannot resume contact with a place, a person or a scene that has been previously witnessed. Though the film begins and ends in London, this concluding site of return is transformed by a shift in visual content and filmic handling. In addition to a formal shift in this treatment of site, the scenes and images gathered in South Asia now inflict upon London and its translation into film.

-Gemma Sharpe, Afterall Online

Karen Mirza and Brad Butler’s current body of work, The Museum of Non Participation proposes a museum as a conceptual (geo)political construct of gesture, image and thresholds of language. Their first film made in this context The Exception and the Rule has screened in over 20 major international festivals and exhibitions.