The décollage External Validation 1987 emerged from the process of playing with the construction (and deconstruction) of identity based on artifacts of official achievement: grade reports, standardized test scores, photographs, newspaper articles, and a badge from a 1987 teen pageant. As I worked on the piece, it felt cathartic to glue down and tear back these defining layers of personal history, creating something new from the documentary “evidence” of academic perfection and parental approval, examining the official proof of my self-worth.
The following photos show the process of collage and then décollage that constructed External Validation 1987.
