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KOLAJ MAGAZINE | ARTIST DIRECTORY | SHOP
Dear Friend of Kolaj,
Good things are happening! We created Kolaj Institute to support artists, curators, and writers who seek to study, document, and disseminate ideas that deepen our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century movement.
We are bringing together community through residencies where artists explore the relationship between collage and other mediums such as street art, poetry, illustration, and more.
We are investigating critical issues like political collage and how artists can activate archives and contribute to the civic discourse. We are working with artists to develop a lens that explores a sense of place through history and folklore.
We are raising collage’s standing in the art world by publishing books and creating museum exhibitions that show collage's power to speak to contemporary issues.
We are just getting started. In 2022, we graduated from being a fiscally sponsored project to a stand alone, IRS recognized 501c3 Non-profit organization registered in the State of Louisiana, USA.
Now we need your help. This coming year we are presenting exhibitions at the Knoxville Museum of Art, hosting residencies at MERZ in Scotland, celebrating World Collage Day, bringing the community to New Orleans for Kolaj Fest, and a host of other activities. We are actively cultivating partnerships with organizations with whom we can raise the profile of collage in the art world and share a deeper understanding and appreciation of the medium.
Your donation will provide critical support at this early stage and allow this organization to take root so that it can serve the community for years to come.
Please make a donation today!
Sincerely,
Ric Kasini Kadour, Director
If you'd like to learn more, I invite you to explore Kolaj Institute's new website, www.kolajinstitute.org. We will hold a Virtual Open House on 17 December 2022 at 2PM EST as part of Kolaj LIVE Online. I also invite you to send an EMAIL if you'd like to speak further about the future of Kolaj Institute.
What's Next for Kolaj Institute?
EXHIBITION & BOOK
Where the Sun Casts No Shadow: Postcards from the Creative Crossroads of Quito, Ecuador
6 January-19 February 2023, Knoxville Museum of Art. The collage, poetry, and photographs in “Where The Sun Casts No Shadow” touch upon themes as wide-ranging as the role of murals and poetry in Latin American culture to issues of the safety of women to how indigenous people are shaping their country’s future. The exhibition traces the role collage plays in art community building and offers a counter-narrative to the portrayal of Latin America as in a state of constant crisis. The exhibition and companion book bring together the in-camera collage works of Stephen & Eve Schaub, the murals of Mo Vásquez, documentary photographs of PLAYhouse in Quito, the poetry of Maria Clara Sharupi Jua in Spanish, English, and Shuar; and art from Quito’s El Club de Collage. MORE
Image: Sol, riqueza y maíz by Ariana Sanchez from El Club de Collage.
WORKSHOP
Curating Collage Workshop
January 2023, Virtual. The Curating Collage Workshop is a four-week program designed to equip artists with the tools to curate their own work, to work with curators, and build exhibitions that connect with diverse audiences. Artists in the workshop will curate each other’s work and produce a statement of practice, biography, and critical context for a body of work. MORE
ONGOING PROJECT
PoetryXCollage
PoetryXCollage is a printed journal of artwork and writing which operates at the intersection of poetry and collage. We are interested in found poetry, blackout poetry, collage poems, haikus, centos, response collages, response poems, word scrambles, concrete poetry, scatter collage poems, and other poems and artwork that inhabit this world. In addition to publishing the printed journal, Kolaj Institute will host residencies and forums that explore the intersection of poetry and collage. MORE
Image: One Hand by Kerrie More on the cover of PoetryXCollage, Volume 3.
RESIDENCY & EXHIBITION
Collage Artist Residency: Scotland
April 2023. An in-person residency at MERZ Gallery in Sanquhar, Scotland centered on collage artists who seek to engage with place in their practice in community with other artists. Residents will make individual artwork and a collaborative work for an exhibition that will take place in May 2023. MORE
ONGOING PROJECT
Politics in Collage
Politics in Collage is a series of residencies, publications, discussions, and exhibitions examining complex socio-political issues that contemporary society is contending with, in order to spark meaningful dialogue and inspire deeper engagement. An international group of collage artists is currently working on a second exhibition in a book that will debut in 2023. MORE
Detail of Fragments of (In) Voluntary Domination by Susana Belen from the book Politics In Collage.
FORTHCOMING BOOK
New Orleans In Collage
How do artists see place and reflect that lens in their work? The book explores the complex histories that make New Orleans an exceptionally fertile place for artists and its unresolved conflicts and impending threats makes such work one of urgency. Building on labs that took place in 2022, Kolaj Institute will host New Orleans Collage Artist Lab: City Archive in 2023, a five-day intensive of workshops, discussions, and collage making designed to foster the integration of history and place into a collage artist’s practice. MORE
Image by Patricia Doucet.
FORTHCOMING BOOK
The Awakening
The result of a project-driven residency focused on collage as illustration, Kolaj Institute is republishing Kate Chopin’s 1899 novel, The Awakening, as interpreted and illustrated by an international cohort of 21st collage artists. The book touches on 19th century feminism, identity, and societal themes that are still relevant today, such as: What does it mean to be a woman? What are the expectations that society puts upon women? Are we bound to what we are born into? What does it mean to transform? What does patriarchy look like today? MORE
Image: Collage by Elizabeth Castaldo from The Awakening.
ONGOING PROJECT
Kolaj Street Krewe
Kolaj Street Krewe is a series of residencies, publications, articles, and discussions that explores the role of collage in street art as a practice and phenomenon. In 2023, Kolaj Street Krewe will launch its new book, Wallflowers: Collage as Street Art, and organize Collage Street Art Residency, 5-10 June 2023 in New Orleans. MORE
Image by Alicia Saadi from Wallflowers: Collage as Street Art.
EVENT
Kolaj Fest New Orleans
Kolaj Fest will return to New Orleans, 7-11 June 2023 for a coming together of collage artists and art professionals; a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society; where the focus is how we celebrate and elevate the status of collage. Presenters will lead panel discussions and explore key curatorial issues. Artists will exhibit artwork, and create special activities and demonstrations. We will meet, network, share community, camaraderie, and fellowship. Returning to Kolaj Fest New Orleans this year will be a screening of Collage in Motion and the Collage Art & Book Market. We will leave armed with new ideas for our artmaking, writing, and curatorial projects, but more importantly, we will leave Kolaj Fest New Orleans prepared to champion this artform in the year to come. MORE
EXHIBITION & BOOK
Artists in the Archives
Through March 2023 at the Henry Sheldon Museum. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Stewart-Swift Research Center, the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History invited an international network of collage artists to engage with historic material in the archive and to create a folio of collage prints that reflect on the idea of community in a 21st century world. The project unfolds as a book, exhibition, folio of prints, and program series as part of Kolaj LIVE Online. MORE
Image: Anthem for the Future by Anthony D Kelly from the book Artists in the Archives.
EVENT
World Collage Day
13 May 2023. World Collage Day is an annual, international celebration of collage on the Second Saturday of May. Initiated by Kolaj Magazine in 2018, we invited artists and art venues to hold events on that day to celebrate collage. World Collage Day is about artists connecting across borders against a global context of entrenchment and separation. Kolaj Institute will produce a World Collage Day 2023 Poster and support artists as they organize events in their community. MORE
EXHIBITION
Mythical Landscapes: Secrets of the Vale
17 March to 28 May 2023, Knoxville Museum of Art. “Mythical Landscape: Secrets of the Vale” is an exhibition by an international group of artists, all of whom traveled to Sanquhar, Scotland to investigate a sense of place and make artwork that speaks to the rich history and folklore of the region. Artworks reference stories from the past (true or otherwise), consider the history of the region, and speculate on future myths and legends.In conjunction with the exhibition, Kolaj Institute will host an Artist Lab about Collage & Folklore that will produce artwork for an exhibition in Scotland in Fall 2023. MORE
Image: Bad Omen 1 by Sara Willadsen from "Mythical Landscapes: Secrets of the Vale".
WORKSHOP
Collage in Practice
July 2023, Virtual. Intended as a clinic for working artists at any level, participants in this workshop will explore how they go about making art and putting it out into the world. How to make a living as an artist? How to get your work seen? How to get an exhibition? How to get reviewed? How to make a life for yourself as an artist? What does that even mean? These are some of the challenges artists face when they want to take their art practice to the next level. Participants will explore critical concepts and collage taxonomies as a way to develop and refine the language they use to talk about their own practice and to develop a broad view of the creative landscape in which they operate. MORE
FORTHCOMING BOOK
Folklore of the Upper Nithsdale
Thirty-three collage artists illustrate stories of witches, ghosts, and other spirits from Sanquhar, Scotland. Using stories collected from William Wilson’s 1904 book, artists reimagine these tales in a 21st Century context and invite us to see folklore as the imagination of the past, understood in the present. MORE
Image: Warld’s En’ Feline Fairies (detail) by Ben DiNino from Folklore of the Upper Nithsdale.
CURRENT ISSUE
Kolaj #36
Barbara Bertino's Sailing the Dry Land graces the front cover of Kolaj 36 which we think is an apt metaphor for a print magazine where each issue travels around the world of collage. In the print magazine, we travel from the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada to Rio de Janeiro to Kampala, Uganda to report on the international community of collage artists and what this 21st century art movement is doing. Kelli Bodle takes us back in time to explore the legacy of Italian Proto-Arte Povera Artist Salvatore Meo. We hear from a collective of composers in Peru (all of whom are women) who are making collage heard as well as seen. We get an update on how the U.S. Supreme Court may be changing Fair Use. And we consider the painterly influences and attitudes of collage artists, whether two-bit collage is a sort of minimalism, and how one artist came to love collage in motion. We hope each issue of Kolaj Magazine takes you someplace you've never been. MORE
NEW BOOK
Wallflowers: Collage as Street Art
Wallflowers: Collage as Street Art explores the intersection of collage and street art. Christopher Kurts recalls the formation of the Kolaj Street Krewe from its creation at Kolaj Fest New Orleans to a guerilla art project during the COVID-19 pandemic to an artist residency for Street Artists. The book contains examples of collage as street art by twenty-four artists from eight countries.
Christopher Kurts explains the title, “Wallflower is often used to describe someone shy or awkward, standing at the edge of things, not participating. But we’re turning that on its head and drawing the solitary artist out from their secluded studio and onto the street. These flowers are blossoming in full view.” An introduction by Ric Kasini Kadour situates collage in the history of street art. LEARN MORE
The mission of Kolaj Institute is to support artists, curators, and writers who seek to study, document, & disseminate ideas that deepen our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, & a 21st century movement.
Please make a donation today!
