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Pollage (Political + Collage) is a growing body of work of small collage pieces made completely analog and their counterparts as transparencies on 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. 

I started making the analog collages in 2020. That year I subscribed to a lot of magazines, in an attempt to look at something else rather than a screen. Without a definite purpose, I extracted 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 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.

For the exhibition at Fountain Street Gallery in 2023, I scanned the collages and printed them on transparencies to be presented as very thin lightboxes 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. Each of these lightboxes acts as 'a scrolling experience', mine. Each one is the result of the information I'm presented with by the media and how I interpret it, which as a native Spanish speaker, differences in language and translation also play a role. These works are a commentary on the state of our society, but I also think of these as self-portraits, where I invite viewers to take a deep dive into my nuanced perspective and my constantly troubled thoughts due to the situation we live in.