It's been the longest war between me and the collage medium. I started making collages at kindergarten, just like any kid of my generation. Back then, I had yet to learn what the medium of collage meant. In time, naturally, this medium became unfamiliar to me as I got exposed to our beloved education system that subtracted exposure to any kind of art from the curriculum until I started my studies in design at the college. In higher design education, we first get introduced to the geometric shapes and the black cardboard paper we must use to create compositions as our brain trains in design thinking. After you study the shapes for months after months, you are finally introduced to the colour. In my undergraduate program, in the first year, we created collages non-stop. Even though right now it feels like a century ago, I remember being so angry because of all the money I had put into the magazines that I had to cut and crop, without even having the chance to read them first. This relationship and dynamic between the outcome of a collage and the collage material made me feel frustrated. I hated that people with better material made better collages than me, but it never occurred to me that this wasn't the case. It wasn't dependent on magazines or any other external material but purely a matter of choosing and electing. In between all these thoughts and delusions, these notes on collage manifested itself in a written form.
Collage as a mode in between anti-production and pro-production
Collage is seeing production beyond production, not recycling but reusing and reshaping. In that way, collage is not only a medium but a political stance towards the mode of production in our times of continuous production.
Collage as a mode in between anti-production and pro-production
Collage is seeing production beyond production, not recycling but reusing and reshaping. In that way, collage is not only a medium but a political stance towards the mode of production in our times of continuous production.
Much of the world is becoming increasingly monotone, spaces become optimizers in favor of some greater economic ideal, losing much of their personal identity, trading it in favor of production. Here, Friction (ruled out by the design of a non-place) leads to debate; it's what leads to insights and, if done well, leads to tolerance. In that sense, collage could even be an ideological acte de resistance in the way it is challenging the models that make up more and more of our lives in favour of the rugged, curved, and edged reality they attempt to approach.
Collage as a vision
Not only is collage a medium but collage is a way of seeing things. Collage production requires the artist to see, look, and search. The moment you start making collages, everywhere you go turns into a jungle in search of materials, be it delivery paper or bird feathers you find on the street or a stamp on a letter thrown into the trash by your neighbour. Collecting, selecting, diminishing, hence reducing is a part of collage production to capture the frustration with the constructed world as our captor, determining our paths as artists.
Not only is collage a medium but collage is a way of seeing things. Collage production requires the artist to see, look, and search. The moment you start making collages, everywhere you go turns into a jungle in search of materials, be it delivery paper or bird feathers you find on the street or a stamp on a letter thrown into the trash by your neighbour. Collecting, selecting, diminishing, hence reducing is a part of collage production to capture the frustration with the constructed world as our captor, determining our paths as artists.
To travel is to collage
In my third year of university, I had the privilege to spend half a year travelling Europe and absorbing new experiences while creating art. During this period, I had the chance to experiment with collage medium since I was wandering all the hip cities, going to concerts with the most eclectic flyers and museums with so much paper material to offer to their beloved visitors. Collage then manifested itself as a necessity to collect and juxtapose all the experiences I gathered. During and around these trips, I had experiences latched onto and mixed with my traveling. In this way, the travels functioned as a backdrop for new (mental) connections, ideas, and insights into my own artworks. It's through the constant traveling, the new experiences, the meeting of people, and the many conversations that these new ideas developed. During my travels and constantly sharing my experiences both in the digital and the real world, I found a way to reflect upon them and work with these new experiences and insights to create new ideas. I stumbled upon a lifestyle affluent in creative potential. Nothing was more freeing than visualizing all these ideas and experiences with every ride I've taken.
In my third year of university, I had the privilege to spend half a year travelling Europe and absorbing new experiences while creating art. During this period, I had the chance to experiment with collage medium since I was wandering all the hip cities, going to concerts with the most eclectic flyers and museums with so much paper material to offer to their beloved visitors. Collage then manifested itself as a necessity to collect and juxtapose all the experiences I gathered. During and around these trips, I had experiences latched onto and mixed with my traveling. In this way, the travels functioned as a backdrop for new (mental) connections, ideas, and insights into my own artworks. It's through the constant traveling, the new experiences, the meeting of people, and the many conversations that these new ideas developed. During my travels and constantly sharing my experiences both in the digital and the real world, I found a way to reflect upon them and work with these new experiences and insights to create new ideas. I stumbled upon a lifestyle affluent in creative potential. Nothing was more freeing than visualizing all these ideas and experiences with every ride I've taken.
Collage as a liberating medium
As pretentious as it sounds, art has been a significant player in my life since I knew myself. Even though it was the thing I associated myself with the most, there have been times I have yet to produce or consume any form of art. Times like these are often mentioned as a creative block; I'm not a big fan of this word since it evokes some sort of a meaning that tells the artist wanted to create art but couldn't because of an invisible force. In times like these, I always found myself cropping pieces here and there to make a collage. They not only cleared my mind and took me out of the heaviness of the urgency and the weightiness of being a non-creating creative, but also allowed me to see other print materials, photographs, and sometimes writings, and this was a consumption of art to start with. This liberated me from the haste of creating something from scratch and allowed me to examine the available materials around me closely. Then collage, for me, turned into a liberating medium as it offered so much to explore.
As pretentious as it sounds, art has been a significant player in my life since I knew myself. Even though it was the thing I associated myself with the most, there have been times I have yet to produce or consume any form of art. Times like these are often mentioned as a creative block; I'm not a big fan of this word since it evokes some sort of a meaning that tells the artist wanted to create art but couldn't because of an invisible force. In times like these, I always found myself cropping pieces here and there to make a collage. They not only cleared my mind and took me out of the heaviness of the urgency and the weightiness of being a non-creating creative, but also allowed me to see other print materials, photographs, and sometimes writings, and this was a consumption of art to start with. This liberated me from the haste of creating something from scratch and allowed me to examine the available materials around me closely. Then collage, for me, turned into a liberating medium as it offered so much to explore.
Collage as a dialectic
In a sense, through the evolution of collage as the embodiment of freedom was natural. Collage must be understood as an overwhelming feeling of freedom to which our natural response was to classical art teaching. Most importantly, and this is my dearest insight from the entire process, the interplay is more interesting than soloism, and rein (pure) interplay is rarer than anything relevant.
In a sense, through the evolution of collage as the embodiment of freedom was natural. Collage must be understood as an overwhelming feeling of freedom to which our natural response was to classical art teaching. Most importantly, and this is my dearest insight from the entire process, the interplay is more interesting than soloism, and rein (pure) interplay is rarer than anything relevant.
Collage as a physical time capsule
Collage limits what was remembered and determines the source material for creating overlapping memories. Worries about future lives that are yet to be led are seldom productive, the Fata Morgana's they produce, and the solutions give ease at night when given time to think. That is precisely what is required to solidify the mental, intangible, and fleeting into the shared realm. We need spaces that lend themselves to our desire to express, create and communicate. The architecture of these spaces creates the rulebook for our lives; to, at least somewhat, escape a predetermined matrix, one must create their own space. Physicality. The mind-body problem is a false distinction, a fake dichotomy, but I've always instinctively moved with the physical dimension my art grants as my existence.
Collage limits what was remembered and determines the source material for creating overlapping memories. Worries about future lives that are yet to be led are seldom productive, the Fata Morgana's they produce, and the solutions give ease at night when given time to think. That is precisely what is required to solidify the mental, intangible, and fleeting into the shared realm. We need spaces that lend themselves to our desire to express, create and communicate. The architecture of these spaces creates the rulebook for our lives; to, at least somewhat, escape a predetermined matrix, one must create their own space. Physicality. The mind-body problem is a false distinction, a fake dichotomy, but I've always instinctively moved with the physical dimension my art grants as my existence.
Collage as a way of embellishment
Similarly to other art forms, the collage allows you to use your artwork to embellish your spaces. In that way, collage allows people to transform their space. Such a space allows one to become approachable, approach, and alter the clinical nature of anonymous art into one in which we all suddenly become ordinarily human. We need spaces that lend themselves to our desire to express, create and communicate. Classical art techniques are a stringent and monotonous set of rules that could easily be broken by simply creating ugly collages.
Similarly to other art forms, the collage allows you to use your artwork to embellish your spaces. In that way, collage allows people to transform their space. Such a space allows one to become approachable, approach, and alter the clinical nature of anonymous art into one in which we all suddenly become ordinarily human. We need spaces that lend themselves to our desire to express, create and communicate. Classical art techniques are a stringent and monotonous set of rules that could easily be broken by simply creating ugly collages.
This project is and will be in work in progress as I will continue to travel, think, communicate and collage and will always be an unfinished manifesto.