Brain Food #455

The fragility of reality

Making a collage is the act of using different parts to make up a new whole. It is, in a way, the reshuffling of a pre-existing reality.

British conceptual artist John Stezaker said that: “Collage allows the opening up of conscious, which is very direct… it’s also a way of looking at what you are consuming all the time.”

Stezaker’s own collage work was characterized not just by what people consumed - magazines, brochures, food labels - but by what they experienced. He took film stills, photographs, and postcards, and stitched them together, altering places, faces, and memories. His work stands as an ironic reminder of the fragility of our reality, showing how identity and consciousness can be shifted and manipulated.

But it could also stand as a symbol of our inherent ability to reinvent ourselves from the pieces that are left.

Mask XXIX, 2006

Old Mask IV, 2006

Untitled, 1996

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