SmART moments – collages by Magdalena Sobolska

Even if we just sit in the metro and travel. We are moving, we run, we drive. We are in constant movement accompanied by quiescence.  And in this system of relative stillness, our emotions and thoughts sometimes start to speed. Telephone is in our hand. Message comes – beginning or answer.


The world is focused in written letters, with which you can not enter into physical interaction, there is no other stimulus – the tone of voice, look, the ability to observe the reactions of the other person. Immobilization speeds up an emotional or intellectual explosion. Sometimes it throws us even more out of the world: there are only received words. Sometimes on the contrary: we fall into the world under the influence of the brilliance or universality of a given statement. Our thoughts radiate, writhe, reach tentacles to things that are already known or create new reference points. Accidental event. Like when we quickly take a shot something wee to keep it, but also – almost always –  to share it, send it. Messages get us, and we get moments, moments, events, keeping them by the tool available always at hand. A silent snapshot of digital memorization. Postcards, letters, rustling cards and colorful stamps. Important thoughts, insights. Sometimes expressed secret emotions. Shame, fear, longing, tenderness. It happens that some of these small samples of words that we send to each other every day in huge amounts are burdened with them. In multicolored speech boxes. We collect screenshots in the disc drawer.

I use only photos taken with my phone, connected to fragments of messages that I sent with the application and chat – they have become an art medium.

>>Even if there is nothing to live for, you have to anyway<<

>>So I shouldn’t but yes, sure<<

>>I had a dream about you<<

>>if I do it, would be only for you<<

>>And Mark wrote something I also believe deep in my heart, that if someone is always super nice, that means that he feels better that you<<

>>When I was aking you yesterday, if you believe in that, you weren’t so sure<<

Magdalena Sobolska, born in 1991. Visual artist, graduate of the Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw (specialization: Visual Culture).
She most often deals with a paper collage. She explores topics related to femininity, relationships and depression.
Writes (and sometimes illustrates) for Szajn magazine.