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Collage Series with Playboy Magazines
It all started with a gift of 50+ Playboy magazines from my friend’s grandfather back in 2020. I pulled up to the garage and filled my trunk with as many as I could and drove them back to my apartment in Philly.
As I sorted through the pages, I was struck by the magazine's cultural significance and controversial content. I cut out and saved photos, interviews, articles, and words that caught my attention, and found myself on a mission to preserve at least some of the magazine's iconic journalistic material. As I delved into decades of covers, centerfolds, and interviews, I gained a new understanding of how Playboy became such a well-known institution.
One aspect of the magazine that particularly interested me was the advertisements. These advertisements often seemed to promote feelings of shame and inadequacy, which inspired me to create a series of collages that reappropriated words and language in order to transmute those negative emotions into a message of power and forgiveness.
