About this series
Part of a larger group of collages mostly in the A4 format, these works are united by the inclusion of quotes from R.D. Laing’s “The Politics of the Family and Other Essays”, a rather interesting psychology text from the 1960s.
Rules about rules
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“Many such rules about rules apply to what parts of whose body can be thought of in relation to whom.”
(Dis)honest
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“We are instructed to be honest. But instructed to operate on our experience in ways that can only be called dishonest.”
Factories
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“Our own cities are our own animal factories; families, schools, churches are the slaughterhouses of our children; colleges and other places are the kitchens.”
Them
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“But then, what are we defending ourselves against? Nothing? Oh no! The danger, the menace, the enemy, Them, are very real. So we have to start again…”
Rules apply
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“Rules apply to what kinds of sensations one is supposed to have where and when in one's own body, in relation to whom.”
Haunted
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“His body was a sort of mausoleum, a haunted graveyard in which the ghosts of several generations still walked, while their physical remains rotted away.”
Me / Not-me
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“We feel ourselves to be inside a bag of skin: what is outside this bag is not-us. Me - inside. Not-me - outside.”
Funny places, funny feelings
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“What are the funny places where funny feelings go on? Where do they come from? Where do they go to?”
Filthy
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“…because since there are no filthy thoughts, and no rule against them, there is no need to talk about this dreary, abstract, irrelevant, or even vaguely filthy subject.”
Origin
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“Our family of origin has done its best. It has given us its range of distinctions, options, identities, definitions, rules, repertoires of operations, instructions, attributions, loci, scenarios, roles, parts to play…”
Outlawed and excommunicated
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“If our wishes, feelings, desires, hopes, fears, perception, imagination, memory, dreams... do not correspond to the law, they are outlawed, and excommunicated. Outlawed and excommunicated, they do not cease to exist.”
Between truth and lie
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“Between truth and lie are images and ideas we imagine and think are real, that paralyse our imagination and our thinking in our efforts to conserve them.”
Plays within plays
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“We cannot expect to catch the curtain going up or down in a drama we are born into. But there are plays within plays.”
The play's the thing
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“The play's the thing. The actors come and go. As they die, others are born. The new-born enters the part vacated by the newly dead. The system perpetuates itself over generations; the young are introduced to the parts that the dead once played. Hence the drama continues.”
Thirteen
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“When I was thirteen, I had a very embarrassing experience. I shall not embarrass you by recounting it."
Normalize
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“Given our distinctions and our rules, we have to work to normalize our experience.”
Forbidden
Collage on paper
2024
“We would know more of what is going on if we were not forbidden to do so, and forbidden to realize that we are forbidden to do so.”
Definitely forbidden
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“One seeks to avoid painful feelings, but there are many pleasurable feelings many people are forbidden to experience, imagine, remember, dream about, and they are definitely forbidden to talk about the fact that they are forbidden to talk about them.”
Scandalized
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“Many people used to be scandalized by this view, for it seems to imply that, if there were not such rules, people might do what was prohibited.”
Hopes / Fears
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“One hopes for the best, though one fears the worst.”
Projection
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“Projection is a mapping of inside onto (or into) outside, and introjection a mapping of outside onto inside.”
Mirror
Collage on paper
21 x 29.7 cm (A4)
2024
“If you don't believe me, just look at yourself in the mirror carefully and you will see that I'm telling the truth.”