"I made my first collage in 1983. I was 14, I was punk, I was doing fanzines. In France, the punk and situationist heritage was already well established. So collage was a natural practice, but with a mainly political application, with the idea of a slogan. Collage has a fascinating history. Some go back to Charles Dufresny in the 18th century. For my part, I'm emotionally linked to the Dadaists Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch and John Heartfield, as well as the Surrealists of course, and particularly Max Ernst - it's to this particular period that I'm most attached. Secondly, I like the way in which people in the art brut movement have evolved by combining techniques, moving from paper to objects to tell their own stories. Collage is more a common practice than a movement in the strict sense of the word. On the other hand, collagists are united by a state of mind: the Stakhanovism of the affair. They are all madmen of the scalpel who want to conjure up a new meaning from foreign material, a mischievous hijacking. And the real trick is how far you can push the exercise. I also think you have to distinguish between collagists and computer and digital assembly addicts. I'm only working on newspapers published between 1840 and 1880 for reasons of consistency. One of the advantages of collage is precisely its lack of reference points. In this sense, there is no dogma that restricts its practice, so it has no definite school, and I love that, as someone who claims to be self-taught, having been thrown out of the National Education system at the age of 16. Ernst said: "If it's the feathers that make the plumage, it's not the glue that makes the collage". In art, nothing can be summed up in a technique". Mr Djub Mr Djub lives and works in Paris (France). He made his first collages in 1983. Claude Roffat, recognised and respected for his work with French singular artists, and creator of the influential singular and raw art magazine L'Œuf sauvage, exhibited the artist in his Paris gallery in the twilight of the 1980s. From 2010 onwards, Mr Djub made his collage technique more complex, deciding to create solely using 'antique paper' - prints printed between 1840 and 1890 as part of popular art, culture, politics and news publications. Seeking out the truth of a paper that is fragile and generally difficult to preserve, his creations reject gestures - such as reprography, re-balancing colours, highlighting with ink - other than those imposed by a pair of scissors and a scalpel. Mr Djub is also Djubaka (music programmer for a French national radio station) and half of the activist duo Anne & Julien, founders of the HEY! project. Read more: Les Mondes Promis, illustrations by Mr Djub, text by Rosita Warlock (published by Rackham).