02/10/2026
De ultieme selfie t/m 11 October.
Allard Boterenbrood | Collateral Images
Collateral Images are images that were not created with any artistic intention. They arise as a result of chance intervening in the production process of the printed newspaper.
During the high-speed processes of printing, cutting, folding and binding, pages sometimes shift relative to one another. As a result, part of a photograph may end up in a different place than intended, only to be discovered there as a Collateral Image. A stroke of serendipity.
What was once a recognizable news photograph is transformed into an enigmatic image by a shift of just a few millimeters. This new cropping piques our curiosity and raises the question of exactly what we are seeing.
Collateral Image invites us to look closely: to reinterpret, to search for connections, to allow ourselves not to know.
Although the printing process is dominated by repetition, precision and mass production, chance manages to force a small opening. In that deviation lies a subtle form of resistance: an image that serves no purpose within the news, yet manifests itself nonetheless. An anomaly which, simply by being there, calls the established order into question. After all, Collateral Images serve no purpose; they are not carriers of information or news. They are autonomous images, original and unique.
As newspapers go digital, the sensory pleasures disappear: the smell of printing ink, the rustle of the paper, the turn of the page, and the chance to let your eyes wander over the pages and stumble upon something you would otherwise have remained unaware of. In the digital newspaper, there is no world beyond the tunnel through which the algorithm guides the reader; no chance, no serendipity. No Collateral Images.
