Back in 1998 I was flipping through a pile of magazines in search of material for collages. It struck me that the layout of a lot of the magazine articles – even the ads – were quite beautiful. I had objections to the subjects and messages a lot of them conveyed, but otherwise I found them really compelling.
In a moment of inspiration, I took a black magic marker to them to remove all the parts I found objectionable or simply didn’t like. I found the process really empowering and also very playful. Who but a child would have the temerity to just take apart these professional pieces of style, design – propaganda – and make them their own.
At the same time, our cultural understanding of redaction in public documents – a form of censorship – plays against this naive, childlike, interaction and creates a wonderful tension I still love to this day.