|
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
Iowa City, Iowa, USA. Alexandra Ackerman’s work is inspired by folk art, aboriginal art, patchwork quilts, the Midwestern landscape, and the vast diversity of plant life. She makes abstract work in multiple mediums (watercolor, gouache, acrylic, collage, pencil, etc) because she’s interested in how materials interact with and contradict each other. Each piece is a record of her search for a sense of balance between order and chaos, harmony and tension. For Ackerman, collage is synonymous with play. As with children’s play, it is very important work, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. MORE
| | |
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Emily Denlinger at the Art Gallery at Jefferson College in Hillsboro, Missouri, USA through 29 January 2026. Emily Denlinger’s collage artwork explores the human condition: issues of identity, survival, truth, and power. In this installation, Denlinger shares a selection of artwork created over the past four years that has been part of the evolving “Gain of Function: New Mutations” series. “Gain of Function: New Mutations” is an ongoing project, started in 2020. The work is created in response to research surrounding the intersections of power dynamics, military industrial complex, community & identity, ecology, simulations, mutations, and surrealism. “Gain of Function: New Mutations” tries to digest the most dystopian aspects of contemporary life and offer the viewer a path to understanding the complex forces that shape our present day and future. MORE
| | |
FOLKLORE COLLAGE SOCIETY
In Folklore Collage Society, Volume 1, Bella LaMontagne focuses on Irish and Celtic folklore as a way to get us to think differently about the environment. She writes, "These stories are not told just for fun...There are lessons here to be learned about morality, philosophy, how to treat the land around you, and how to treat the places you inhabit." (image: Green Jacket, Red Cap, and White Owl's Feather (detail) by Bella LaMontagne
(9.5"x7.25"; magazine/book images, cyanotype, gelli plate prints, acrylic paint; 2023). Courtesy of the artist.)
Folklore Collage Society is a printed journal dedicated to artwork and artists who activate, transmit, and celebrate folklore as a form of cultural expression and a strategy for community resilience. In its pages, stories, statements, essays, field notes, poetry, and song lyrics mingle with collage art that shows how collage artists are thinking about the folklore. Visit Kolaj Institute's Folklore Collage Society page to get a copy or to join upcoming residencies where collage artists explore working with folklore in their artist practice. LEARN MORE
| | Learn how you can BE THE GLUE that keeps the work of Kolaj Institute going into the next year! DETAILS
| | |
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
Munich, Germany. Our lives are on display, but we hide what we don’t want to show. Dunia Barrera's work is about things not said; hidden things that belong to us and that are scary, embarrassing to tell. In her work, she brings these out, giving them a space. Barrera comes from a culture where what others think is a big deal. Living outside for 16 years has impacted her thinking, and now she processes this through her work. She uses symbolic elements and words to bring her message and work with materials that she can repurpose or use in a completely different way than intended. MORE
| | |
SOLO ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
through 24 January 2026. Cape Girardeau, Missouri-based collagist Emily Denlinger is using her Solo Residency time at Kolaj Institute to have focused time creating artwork. She will also collaborate with New Orleans-based artist LaVonna Varnado Brown to create a Pop-Up Stop-Action Animation workshops at the New Orleans Museum of Art on 21 January and Kolaj Institute on 16 January. These workshops are intergenerational, for all ages from children to senior citizens. The animations made during the workshops will be given to the host venues at the end. READ MORE
| | |
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Kelly Moran at LeMieux Galleries in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA through 21 February 2026. Kelly Moran is a collage artist, drawn to the charm and fragility of paper dolls and other forms of vintage ephemera. She gathers remnants of past eras and reimagines them as part of an unfolding visual narrative. In “Apparel for Cosmic Travelers”, she constructs intricate compositions that guide audiences through shifting landscapes of familiar yet mysterious figures. The title reflects a central idea in my work: that we are all voyagers, moving through space and history while gathering the fragments of our shared cultures. MORE
| | |
FROM THE PRINT MAGAZINE
In the feature, “Selections from the Collection”, we showcase artwork from the Kolaj Institute Collection that has been curated by participants in the Curating Collage Workshop. In this issue, O! Pioneers by Katrina Slavik (Queens, New York, USA) is curated by Faith Baum (Lexington, Massachusetts, USA). LEARN MORE & GET YOUR COPY
Since 2011, Kolaj Magazine has documented, reported on, and explored the amazing artists who make up the international collage community. We hope you enjoy the articles and images in the magazine, but also, we hope it leads you to asking great questions and ultimately to great artwork.
| |
EVENT
Saturday, 24 January 2026, 6-10PM, at Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA DETAILS
| | |
SUBSCRIBE TO KOLAJ MAGAZINE TODAY
Kolaj Magazine exists to show how the world of collage is rich, layered, and thick with complexity. By remixing history and culture, collage artists forge new thinking. To understand collage is to reshape one's thinking of art history and redefine the canon of visual culture that informs the present. Your support of this magazine keeps us going and makes it possible for us to investigate and document collage and to promote a deeper, more complex understanding of the medium and its role in art history and contemporary art.
DON'T MISS OUT!
| | |
CALL TO ARTISTS
Early Deadline to Apply: 31 January 2026. A five-session PoetryXCollage virtual residency, 21 February-22 March 2026. In the Virtual Residency,"The Elusive X," artists will concentrate on the intersection between Poetry X Collage, the dynamic space where these two methods of creativity intersect and inform one another. Our core path of exploration will be: How do we bring the visceral, linguistic precision of poetry and the fragmented, material nature of collage together? Jennifer Roche will lead participants on a journey of inquiry to explore what poetry and collage means for them, their work, and our culture. Poet and collagist S. Erin Batiste will join the residency as a guest speaker to share her own work and inform the artists about what Black Fems are doing at the intersection of poetry and collage and why she thinks it matters. Ric Kasini Kadour will share Poetry X Collage’s history and speak about the curatorial and editorial visions which guide the project. LEARN MORE
| | |
CALL TO ARTISTS
Early Deadline to Apply: 28 February 2026. A week-long in-person PoetryXCollage residency in New Orleans, Sunday, 12 April to Thursday, 16 April 2026. The focus of the residency will be about making artwork at the intersection of poetry and collage for the exhibition, "The Fragment as Verse." Artists will have 24-hour access to the gallery, studio, and material library where they can work in community to make collage poetry. In daily meetings, artists will share work and get feedback from one another. Prior to the residency, artists will meet virtually where Ric Kasini Kadour will make presentations on the history of the project, artist practice, and the ecosystem of Poetry & Collage and Jennifer Roche will present on her observations of the intersection. Through in person discussions, artists will explore how the art they make at the intersection of poetry and collage exists on the printed page and on the wall of a gallery. Artists will be invited to present their work at the opening of the exhibition, "The Fragment as Verse," on Saturday, 18 April 2026, 2-4PM. The in-person artist residency at Kolaj Institute Gallery will coincide with the New Orleans Poetry Festival (16-19 April 2026) where we hope artists will connect with poets, editors, and publishers. LEARN MORE
| | |
CALL TO ARTISTS
At Kolaj Institute, our philosophy is that if we bring artists together, explore ideas and concepts, share knowledge, we can stretch and develop as artists. When we bring that knowledge and skill into our communities, we raise the standing of collage and contribute to the civic discourse. Kolaj Institute's Artist Development Program is a collection of three core workshops for self-motivated artists, at any stage in their career, who want to develop and expand their collage-based artist practice and work towards professional goals, particularly in the areas of exhibitions and publishing. LEARN MORE
| | |
CALL TO ARTISTS
Kolaj Institute’s solo residencies in New Orleans are designed to provide artists, curators, and writers with dedicated time and space to work on a project. We are open to your ideas. We are looking for artists with an articulated goal for their time in New Orleans. That goal need not to be explicitly related to New Orleans, though priority will be given to those artists whose projects need time in New Orleans. These Solo Residencies are taking place at Kolaj Institute’s home in the New Orleans Healing Center and help further Kolaj Institute's mission 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. MORE
| | | | |
NEW PUBLICATION
Folklore Collage Society is a printed journal dedicated to artwork and artists who activate, transmit, and celebrate folklore as a form of cultural expression and a strategy for community resilience. In its pages, stories, statements, essays, field notes, poetry, and song lyrics mingle with collage art that shows how collage artists are thinking about the folklore. In Folklore Collage Society, Volume 1, editor Ric Kasini Kadour lays out the inspiration behind the project. Kate Sutherland and Bella LaMontagne share Irish and Celtic folklore. Indira Govindan considers the story of Lakshmibai. Jennifer Lentfer offers an example of counter folklore. Jacoub Reyes explores Taíno oral histories. We share Field Notes about crows and witches turning into hares. Sarah Cowling and Eli Craven makes art of their own family folklore Leanne Poellinger explores the symbolism and community of apple pie. Dean Reynolds offers us photographic evidence of gateways between realms. Natalie Vestin shares stories of Swedish smallfolk. And Verónica Poblete Villanueva takes us to Algeria and shows us the dance of Ouled Nail Tribe. MORE
| | |
NEW PUBLICATION
Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide
Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide is a collage. The book combines the text of a Polish human rights activist Martin Mycielski with the artwork of seven collage artists to create a space in which we can think about the rise of authoritarianism and how to navigate the troubling, difficult times in which we find ourselves. Organized as a series of lists, the book illustrates what to expect under authoritarianism and offers rules for surviving authoritarian regimes and engaging their supporters. The introduction traces how the text came into existence and how the artists came together to make collage about it. Ric Kasini Kadour shares historical examples of artists responding to authoritarianism; John Heartfield’s anti-fascist collage and a 1979 exhibition in East Germany that was described as a “victory over false consciousness.” Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide is a testament to the role art can play in our communities.
| | |
NEW PUBLICATION
This project led by Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA-based artist Emily Denlinger speaks to the role of art, ritual, and resilience. Building on her own work, Denlinger engaged with thirty-nine artists at the 2025 edition of Kolaj Fest New Orleans to make locative collage photographs in an artist-created landscape inspired by global masking traditions. The resulting artworks are presented in this zine published by Kolaj Institute. "The project functions as 21st century folklore with each character potentially representing a magical creature or masked performer in some yet-to-be-imagined ritual," wrote Kolaj Institute Director Ric Kasini Kadour. "Like the odd, creature-like figures of early 20th century Surrealists, they, too, are a response to deeply troubled times and offer us the opportunity to find a collective effervescence to see us through them."
| | |
PRINT MAGAZINE
Since 2011, Kolaj Magazine has documented, reported on, and explored the amazing artists who make up the international collage community.
In Kolaj #42, you'll discover "Little Beasts" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; Warsaw, Poland-based collagist Marta Janik; animated collage at the Glastonbury Festival; the radiating collage of Dana Hart-Stone; anti-authoritarian political collage projects from San Diego, California and Barcelona, Spain; contemporary challenges of doing Mail Art; a daughter reflecting on her mother's collage practice; a collaborative scanograph collage poem; collage book reviews; “Selections from the Collection” and and artist portfolios.
Our goal with every issue is that Kolaj Magazine is essential reading for anyone interested in the role of contemporary collage in art, culture, and society. MORE
| | |
JOURNAL
PoetryXCollage is a printed journal of artwork and writing that 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.
PoetryXCollage, Volume Seven includes artwork and writing by Pablo Cabrera Ferralis (Leipzig, Germany); Natalie W Schorr (Greenville, North Carolina, USA); Hanna Madej (Wroclaw, Poland); Dianalog (Palm Springs, Florida, USA); Christy Sheffield Sanford (Saint Augustine, Florida, USA); and a selection of Asemic Writing Collage Poems from Anthony D Kelly, Laura Tafe, Thomas Mayer, and Janice McDonald, with commentary by Ric Kasini Kadour. On the Cover is a detail of BY CHANCE/LA DÉRIVE by Pablo Cabrera Ferralis. MORE
| |
|
NEW PUBLICATION
Frankenstein
| |
This new version of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s classic 19th century novel Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus features seventy-six illustrations by International Collage Artists who delved into the novel’s rich narrative and visual potential and created thought-provoking artworks that reflect the essence of Frankenstein in a 21st century context.
| | | |  | |
NEW PUBLICATION
Magic in the Modern World
Taking a broad view of magic and drawing from multiple histories, the book, Magic in the Modern World, proposes a way to think about magic in the 21st century, what it means to communities, and how it negotiates itself in systems of power. Generously illustrated, the book features the artwork of fifteen collage artists and dozens of historical images.
| | | |
ARTSHOP
"I Cut Therefore I Kolaj" T-shirt
Since we started Kolaj Magazine in 2011, people have been asking about t-shirts. Well, we finally made one. We are pleased to announce the "I Cut Therefore I Kolaj" T-shirt. We hope you like it and wear it with pride.
| | |
TRADING CARDS
Kasini House Artshop works with the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory to produce curated packs of the Collage Artist Trading Cards. Each card is a full color, 5.5” x 3.5” postcard with rounded corners. An example of an artist’s work is on the front of the card and the artist’s public contact information is on the back. Collage Artist Trading Cards come in packs of 15.
| |
About Kolaj Magazine
Kolaj Magazine is a quarterly, printed, art magazine reviewing and surveying contemporary collage with an international perspective. We are interested in collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century art movement. Kolaj is published in Montreal, Quebec by Maison Kasini. Visit Kolaj Magazine online.
WEBSITE | ARTIST DIRECTORY | SHOP
About Kolaj Institute
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, and a 21st century movement. We operate a number of initiatives meant to bring together community, investigate critical issues, and raise collage’s standing in the art world.
WEBSITE | CALLS TO ARTISTS | SUPPORT
| | | | |
