Compositie van elf foto's van personen en onderwijs aan de Keizerlijke Militair-Medische Academie, gecombineerd met decoratie van gedroogde takken 1913

This collage of photographs and dried branches was made by V. Sabel'skij. The subdued sepia tones give it a feeling of something unearthed, something that has been aged by time and perhaps even grief. It makes you wonder what the artist was feeling when they made this. What catches my eye most are the dried branches placed across the photographs. They’re so tactile! These physical elements are almost like a drawing on top of the photos, adding an organic, chaotic element to the rigid structure of the photographic grid. They obscure some of the images, like a memory fading, or perhaps the creeping tendrils of time itself. This makes me think of artists like Hannah Höch, who used collage to disrupt and reassemble images of the world. Just as in her work, there's an element of chance and intuition here. It feels more like an assemblage of feelings and moments. It is this raw, emotional quality that draws me in. Art is rarely about answers, it's more about the questions it lets us ask.