Imagine you’re at an exhibition opening talking to a friend about one of your new artworks. She asks you about its meaning — seeing that you made it, surely your insight on what it means to you could help her understand the intricate piece? But what if you could only say one sentence about it?

Even without restrictions, talking about your work is hard; no-one is alike, no person has the same perspective on life — even if we leave the hard questions like “What is the meaning of this or that?”, “Why are we here?” or “Did the chicken come before the egg or vice versa?” out of the picture.

Communication is the ability to convey stories via all of our available senses, and this isn’t true only for writers and musicians, but for all forms of communication, even via smell or touch. But imagine you only had one word, one musical note, one brush-stroke or one smell at your disposal. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to tell your story; unless you’re one of the best minimalist artists alive, you probably couldn’t do much of anything with only that one thing, at least nothing that would genuinely captivate you or your audience.

When creating my collages, I myself tend to think in series rather than in single pieces, because the argument that multiple pieces communicate a message much better than only one artwork is a proven one. 

Think of the famous curator Harald Szeemann; the fifth Documenta in Kassel was not a huge success only because of the amazing artists and artworks that were part of the exhibition, but because of the way the exhibition was made as a whole. Were it not for Szeemann’s grand vision, the show would not have gained the praise it had received.

There are of course many other arguments on why series work better than singles — for example the life’s work of an artist could be considered as a grand series and to consider it as such is one of the best ways to differentiate any one artist from others, working with similar mediums and motifs. But while thinking in such proportions may not necessarily be the best approach, series are a powerful way for any creative to strengthen the narrative they are creating with their audience. 

Because the stronger and clearer the story, the more chances it has to have an impact on the lives of those we are trying to reach.