POLLAGE: SCROLLING EXPERIENCES

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Una Mexicana en Gringolandia at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Spring 2024

Pollage (Political + Collage) is a growing body of work of small collage pieces made completely analog and then printed as transparencies and presented in lightboxes. At my studio, I browse magazines for hours, cutting pieces of pages (pictures or text) that 'speak to me'. All these clippings go into my red lid box of cutouts, until ready to be summoned. With time, topics start to emerge in my mind, as I make relations by remembering imagery or phrases that I've cut out and relate with a topic I'm interested in. It is then when I start putting things together on a page.

In late 2020 I subscribed to a lot of magazines, in an attempt to look at something else rather than a screen. Without a definite purpose, I started extracting parts from those pages that somehow resonated with me. Soon I realized that whatever I was clipping had been informed by what I was watching on the screens, which was at the time my main connection with the outside world. The information I was presented with by search engines and media companies informed my interests and opinions.

Since the beginning, it became clear that the analog collages, formed entirely by hand, had to be built from things that I have access to in real life, rather than digitally manipulated. I believe there is a connection between physicality and chance here. I was at the exact time and place where I was able to get a hold of something that will be part of one of my artworks. As the process taught me to think about this serendipity, I've changed my method for getting  my source material. My preferred methods are now relying on Facebook groups to ask my neighbors for magazines, getting free local pamphlets or newspapers from super markets or community centers, and scouting libraries for discarded publications.

Last year I scanned the collages, printed them on transparencies and put them inside very thin light boxes that resemble tablets or computer screens. This action, beyond allowing me to create an edition, took the project back to where it started, to its connection to digital media. It also speaks of my roots as a photography based artist, I think of the physical collages as my analog film, since these are built completely from things that I have access to in real life.

Each of these lightboxes acts as 'a scrolling experience', mine. Each one is the result of the information I'm presented with when I scroll and of how I interpret it, which as a native Spanish speaker, differences in language and translation also play a role. With this series, by looking inwards I'm attempting to connect to the outside world. How many others fee like me? Do others encounter similar ideas when they scroll? How many of us need to flush these convoluted thoughts out in order to move forward? Although these works seem to be a commentary on the state of our society, I actually think of these as self-portraits, where I invite viewers to take a deep dive into my nuanced perspective and talk things through.