Krantenknipsel over brand in jeugdcentrum 1969

This is a newspaper clipping about a fire in a youth center, pasted into a book, a collision of time and place, by COC. The whole image has this washed-out grey tone, like a memory fading, which really emphasizes the historical aspect of the subject. The text is stark; the image, grainy. But it's the texture here that gets me, the physical paper, the way it's been handled, maybe folded, the glue marks… It’s like holding history in your hands, or seeing the world through someone else’s scrapbook. I’m drawn to the fragment of text that mentions a performance on June 5, 1969, it states ‘just in time’. This piece reminds me of Rauschenberg's combines, the way he brought together disparate elements to create something new, something that spoke to the messiness and complexity of modern life. Art isn't about giving answers, but about asking questions, about sparking conversations that continue across time.