Untitled 

Katrien De Blauwer made this untitled collage from found paper and photographs. De Blauwer often focuses on images of women, exploring themes of memory and absence through deconstruction and reassembly. The act of collaging involves recontextualizing existing images, questioning the original intent and imposing a new narrative. The artist cuts and layers, obscuring and revealing, disrupting the viewer's gaze and prompting questions about how meaning is constructed through images. Made in a time when visual media is ubiquitous, collage becomes a tool to critique the consumption of images and the stories they tell. To fully understand the artwork, a social historian might research the origin of the source images, the cultural context in which they were initially produced and consumed, and how De Blauwer's intervention challenges or subverts these pre-existing meanings. The act of 'making strange' familiar images can give rise to new interpretations and socio-cultural critiques.