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KOLAJ INSTITUTE NEWS
A second session has been added to Kolaj Institute's Carnival as Folklore In-Person Artist Residency in New Orleans. In the first session (25-30 January 2026), artists will be invited to attend the Chewbaccus Viewing Party on 24 January and will hear from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA-based artist Emily Denlinger about the project, Gain of Function: New Mutations/Old Traditions/Collective Effervescence. In the second session (9-13 February 2026), artists will attend the parades of the Krewes of Druids & Alla on Wednesday evening in the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans. Artists will also visit The Historic New Orleans Collection in the French Quarter and consider the role Carnival has played in the history of New Orleans. They will also visit the Backstreet Museum in the Treme. Artwork made during the residency will be considered for an exhibition at Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans that will take place 14 February to 11 April 2026 and for publication in Kolaj Institute’s Folklore Collage Society, 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. The deadline to apply is 28 December 2025. MORE
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FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
Richmond, California, USA. Dawn Gonzales’ recent digital collages are a reflection of the liminal space where she finds herself, caught between the dichotomies of "too much" and "not enough": culturally, physically, emotionally, and professionally. This work is about creating a sense of assurance in the viewer; an expression of the adage that two seemingly contradictory things can be true at once. MORE
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FROM THE PRINT ISSUE
In Kolaj 42, we profile the book, The Life & Design of Frédéric Le ShoeShoe, The project is the brainchild of Montreal collage artist Maria Schamis Turner who was a Solo Artist in Residence at Kolaj Institute in May 2024. "A fun read illustrated with nonsensical, figurative collage, the book tells the story of a fictional fashion designer from Montreal who travels to New Orleans in search of glory only to end in tragedy." LEARN MORE & GET A COPY
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FROM THE PRINT MAGAZINE
Carlsbad, California, USA. “The art form of collage has allowed me to finally surrender being a victim of my own perfectionism... Creating art allows me to weave together a lifetime of stories and memories.” A portfolio of her artwork appears in Kolaj #42. LEARN MORE & GET A COPY
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COLLAGE ON VIEW
at the Weird Show Gallery through 16 February 2026. “Phantom Tigers and Parallel Papers” takes paper back from that history. It reclaims it as a generative material—fragile but ungovernable, resistant to classification. Here, paper is not background but protagonist; not support, but substance. The artists gathered in this show—Susana Blasco, Andrea Burgay, Jack Felice, Alma Haser, Paul Henderson, Miko Hornborg, and Mark Wagner—approach collage not as a format but as a political and poetic gesture. Their practices unfold across media, geographies, and sensibilities, yet they share a refusal of passivity. The exhibition was curated by Sònia Lopez. MORE
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FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
Oakland, California, USA. Gabriel Sama has been creating collages for more than two decades. He began this artistic journey in Mexico City and has since carried it with him to various places where he has resided in the US, including New York City, San Antonio, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Considering himself a global citizen, Sama’s collage work reflects this identity, incorporating cutouts, images, and symbols from diverse cultures while maintaining a strong connection to his Mexican heritage. While he primarily works with traditional paper cut-outs, Sama also has incorporated the use of stickers, which he procures and collects during his travels worldwide, actively integrating them into his work. MORE
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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!
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CALL TO ARTISTS
Final Deadline to Apply: 28 December 2025. Carnival as Folklore is a five-day, in-person collage artist residency at Kolaj Institute in New Orleans, being offered in 2 sessions: 25-30 January 2026 & 9-13 February 2026. Carnival’s traditions are rooted in ancient European festivals. Its 19th-century revival in the Americas parallels a time when people were rediscovering and reveling in Greek and Roman Mythology. As such, carnival is dripping with folklore. No place does Carnival like New Orleans, where the city comes alive in a mass display of collective effervescence. During this in-person Artist Residency, collage artists will be invited to spend a week in New Orleans investigating Carnival as folklore and making art about it. Taking a broad view of collage and rooted in an understanding of Artist Practice, artists will hear a working theory of folklore; what it is; how it functions in communities; and the role artists can play in activating, transmitting, and celebrating folklore in communities as a form of cultural expression and a strategy for community resilience. MORE
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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."
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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
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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
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NEW PUBLICATION
Frankenstein
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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