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FOLKLORE COLLAGE SOCIETY
In Folklore Collage Society, Volume 1, Leanne Poellinger explores the symbolism and community of apple pie. She writes, "I have a personal connection to apples. I have lived my entire life in La Crescent: the “Apple Capital of Minnesota.” This small city, nestled on the banks of the Mississippi River in southeastern Minnesota, is known for its apple orchards and beautiful bluffs with spectacular views of the river." (image: As Symbolic as Apple Pie (detail) by Leanne Poellinger (16"x20"; handmade paper, found paper images on hardboard panel; 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
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FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
Palisades Park, New Jersey, USA. Gina Lucia’s mixed media collage work fuses commercial and fine art techniques. Hand drawn sketches are combined with found objects, photography, hand-rendered typography and presented in a thought-provoking photomontage. Inspired by music, Surrealism and the Freudian concept of free association, personal experiences and heartbreak, everyday encounters with objects, people and places, the current social and political climate, her collages are spontaneous juxtapositions of unlikely things. She incorporates elements of pop culture; viscera; nature; animals; insects; and other eclectic ephemera into her work. The harmonious commingling of both digital technology and fine art techniques has allowed her to redefine and refine her art. MORE
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COLLAGE ON VIEW
Opacity in the Photographic Imprint at Newcomb Art Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA through 16 January 2026. In his writings, Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant asserts that all people have the right to opacity–to remain elusive and partially hidden. Additionally, he conceptualizes “poetics” as a set of in flux relations that bridges the gap between the known and the unknown. “Poetic Gaps: Opacity in the Photographic Imprint” uses these claims as a speculative prompt. Taking Newcomb Art Museum’s photographic collection as a point of departure, and extending into the realms of sculpture and installation, this exhibition follows a poetic and relational logic of that which refuses to be fully “caught”, or fully known within the photographic frame. The exhibition, curated by Kaillee Coleman and Fei Xie, curatorial assistants at the Newcomb Art Museum, features work by 18 artists and collectives. MORE
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VIRTUAL EVENT
Thursday, 15 January 2026, 7-9PM EST
During this edition of Kolaj LIVE Online, Ric Kasini Kadour will present a virtual tour of the exhibition, "Pictures at the Intersection of Photography & Collage" and we will hear from some of the artists in the exhibition. Kadour will also present a preview of the new zine, Locative Kolaj by Special Agent Collage Collective, which was made by attendees at the 2025 edition of Kolaj Fest New Orleans. Kadour wrote, “The intersection of collage and photography is not like a simple crossroads where two streets meet. It’s more like a roundabout where many paths come together before shooting off in different directions. The deeper one gets into this inquiry, the more road metaphors fail. It may be more helpful to think of the intersection of collage and photography as neuropathways or mycelium.” DETAILS AND RSVP
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CALL TO ARTISTS
Deadline: Sunday, 1 February 2026. Lovely But Dead presents: The Art of Coming Back is a 10-part collaborative, monthly zine series pairing the collage art of Emily Morgan with writing that explores addiction, grief, trauma, mental health, and recovery (aka the art of coming back). Each zine will be full-color, approximately 20 pages, and released in standard and premium versions from February through November, with a complete box set available at the end of the year. Each zine will feature one poem or story and offers a $50 stipend to the selected author. LEARN MORE
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NEW ZINE
At Kolaj Fest New Orleans, the Special Agent Collage Collective sent attendees on a mission: Create a collage that is temporarily placed into the Kolaj Fest New Orleans environment in some way, whether that’s on the street, at a venue, or other place where someone may encounter it. The zine, Locative Kolaj, is a document of the work of thirty-seven artists who responded to the mission. The project was led by Andrea Lewicki who, since 2021, has operated the Special Agent Collage Collective, an international collection of collage artists who complete special missions and share them on social media. "SACC was created to interact with other collage artists and enjoy the magic that can unfold from a few scraps of paper, a sharp blade, and a fresh glue stick. We participate in theme-based collage challenges, public art drops, and other interactive activities." wrote Lewicki. "A membership card and Special Agent number are earned by completing a mission. The collective enthusiastically welcomes new members." Special Agents are longtime hobbyists, college students, authors, filmmakers, scientists, accomplished professional artists, and collage newcomers. "The compulsion to cut and paste is strong with us." MORE
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FROM THE PRINT ISSUE
Shitty World Leaders Rubik's Cube
Dada rose from the ashes of World War I and, as such, the artists were intensely political. We once again find ourselves at a time of rising authoritarian power. In Kolaj 42, we report on how Enrique “Kike” Congrains’s Shitty World Leaders Rubik’s Cube Game is in line with a long tradition of artists satirizing power. LEARN MORE
ABOUT THE MAGAZINE
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. GET YOUR COPY
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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
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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