Please Make Sure Your Camper Is Secure

An autoethnography written by interdisciplinary artist and Pennsylvania native, Alex Roth. In 2011 Roth purchased a small plot of land in Gilberton, PA. For eight years the artist intermittently stayed in her RV situated in the heart of this small coal-mining town, as she formed relationships with residents while documenting her activities and interactions. In her archive, Roth documents herself digging holes, walking in a white suit at night, leaving surrogates in construction equipment, and dancing to Elvis in an empty roller rink. What began as heuristic exploration gelled into this collection of essays, interviews, photographs, and additional documentation of the artist’s physical gestures. “Reading Please Make Sure Your Camper is Secure is for me, at moments, like reading Michel de Certeau’s “Walking in the City,” or Guy Debord’s Psychogeographic Guide to Paris . At other times it is like the best moments from Annie Dillard’s Teaching a Stone to Talk , or the various atlases of Rebecca Solnit. But at bottom it reminds me, and is as thrilling and troubling, as Jayne Anne Phillips’ Black Tickets or Joan Didion’s The White Album . Ultimately, comparisons fall short of describing just what this book is and who Alex is as a person and artist.” —David Griffith Designed by Noah Venezia Published by Stupendous, 2019 Softcover, 152 pages, b&w and color, 4.5 × 6.75 inches Printed in a limited edition of 300 copies ISBN: 978-0-578-41424-9