A Collection, Notes on Attention, A Pause

See the full print project in BlackFlash 42.3 Patterns. Explore the corresponding digital project, .The. .Soft. .Archive. .A. .Collection. online.

I have been thinking about collections, what they define for us and how they, in turn, define us. I have always associated collections with value. To collect is to assign worth, to say that something matters enough to be preserved. Art collections, coin collections, car collections, etc.: these all paint a portrait of the collector, reflecting their desires, histories, and obsessions. 

I am a collector. My collection is made up of found objects that were once functional and now exist as trinkets on a shelf: fragments of metal, wood, broken parts, shells, and a perfectly round magnet. Objects that have caught my attention. I am also amassing a small rock collection. These gathered remnants feel tangible, grounded, evidence of touch and memory. But while thinking about these objects as my collections, I hadn’t considered the largest one quietly accumulating on my laptop: screenshots, taken during the process of making works. What happens when the things we collect are not rare objects, but fragments of the everyday? In the age of data and information, what does a collection of screenshots say about the collector?

The images accompanying this text are screenshots of a collection of screenshots. They are records of moments within my digital process: works in progress, points of hesitation, and small momentary alignments of colour and form. The screenshot interrupts the flow, capturing a fleeting thought within the machinery of creation. It is a time stamp, a photograph, or an idea jotted down in a notebook. The act of capturing a thought gives a fleeting moment a platform to become something.

Much of my practice unfolds in front of screens. The day blurs between work, rest, and connection; between creating and consuming. In this landscape of constant information, control feels diffused—we no longer choose how much we look, only what we look at. The screenshot becomes a quiet act of resistance, a way to pause the flood. It is an act of noticing and recording, and a belief that one might return to these fragments and find meaning again.

Over time, these captures have multiplied into hundreds, then thousands. They now live across folders and drives, gathering a kind of digital dust. Through this process, I began thinking about the struggle between information and choice. In a system that overwhelms, the simple act of keeping becomes a form of agency. To save a screenshot—something meant to be temporary—is to assign value to what is usually considered worthless. It becomes a way of saying: this matters, if only to me. Maybe this is the quiet philosophy that gives value to thought itself; in paying attention, we transform the fleeting into something meaningful.

Unlike historical collections meant to signify taste, wealth, and culture, what does a collection of screenshots signify? It lacks grandeur but holds intimacy. It documents not possession, but attention; not wealth, but the rhythm of looking.

Ultimately, this collection is less about ownership and more about presence. It marks the persistence of memory in a landscape of screens, where images flicker and fade faster than we can name them. To collect screenshots is to collect evidence of seeing—to acknowledge that even in the flood of images, our small acts of noticing still matter. Each one is a trace of time, a digital souvenir of having been somewhere, looking.

In the process of reorganizing these screenshots—revisiting fragments of past work, half-formed ideas, and forgotten moments—I have found myself thinking about what it means to slow down, about the pauses between actions, the gaps between images, and the quiet that follows accumulation. How strange that a digital act—so rooted in immediacy—has led me to think about stillness. About silence. Perhaps the soft archive, in the end, is not only a record of what I’ve kept, but a reminder to stop, to listen, and to linger in the spaces between. 

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Shaheer Zazai is an Afghan-Canadian artist with a current studio practice in painting and digital media. He received a BFA from OCAD University in 2011. 

Zazai’s practice focuses on the development of cultural identity in the present geopolitical climate and diaspora. While the digital practice is a process-based exploration, the paintings have been an internal investigation into vulnerability and fear.

Over time, Zazai’s material vocabulary has expanded into textile work, site-specific public art installations and video works with his lens becoming self-reflective.

Zazai is a recipient of the TFVA Visual Artist Award, several Ontario Arts Council grants, and he was a finalist for EQ Bank’s Emerging Digital Artist Award. He has had several solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally.

Zazai will open a solo exhibition at Art Gallery of Mississauga in January 2026 and will participate in a group exhibition at San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Design in 2026. 

This article is published in issue 42.3 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue