Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans
Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans is an exhibition gallery, residency center, artist studio, library and archive. Located at 2374 Saint Claude Avenue, Suite 230, at the corner with St. Roch Avenue above the Peach Cobbler Factory. The Gallery is open Thursday-Saturday, Noon-6PM or by appointment. Join us on Second Saturday for the Bywater Art Walk from 6-8PM.
CURRENT EXHIBITION
Pictures at the Intersection of Photography and Collage
At Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA through 24 January 2026.
Throughout 2024 and 2025, Kolaj Institute hosted virtual residencies during which artists made work at the intersection of photography and collage. The intersection of collage and photography is not like a simple crossroads where two streets meet,” wrote exhibition curator and Kolaj Institute Director Ric Kasini Kadour, “It’s more like a round-about 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.” In the exhibition, artists use collage to disrupt the photograph in order to tell a more complex and layered story.
UPCOMING EVENTS & WORKSHOPS
COLLAGE MAKING & NETWORKING
Collage Artist Meet-Up
Last Tuesdays, 6-8PM CST
COMMUNITY WORKSHOP
Collage the Tarot
Second Wednesdays, 7-9PM CST
Introducing Folklore Collage Society
Folklore Collage Society is a project of Kolaj Institute that considers the role artists play in activating, transmitting, and celebrating folklore in communities as a form of cultural expression and a strategy for community resilience.
CALL TO ARTISTS
Carnival as Folklore Artist Residency
Final Deadline to Apply: Sunday, 28 December 2025.
Carnival as Folklore is a five-day, in-person collage artist residency at Kolaj Institute in New Orleans, 25-30 January 2026 OR 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.
CALL TO ARTISTS
Kolaj Institute Solo Artist Residency
Submissions are reviewed on an ongoing basis
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.
CALL TO ARTISTS
Collage in Practice
Next Deadline: Tuesday, 23 December 2025.
The practice of collage takes on many forms and is shaped by the artist’s goals and what they want to achieve with their artwork, how they want to diffuse their artwork in the broader ecosystem of art. The Collage in Practice Workshop is designed to give artists a working understanding of artist practice and how this understanding informs approaches to professional and artistic development. 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. Participants will finish the workshop with a deeper understanding of their practice; a strong statement of practice that can be used to communicate with curators, editors, and art professionals; a portfolio of artwork (or a plan to make one); and tools for growing or developing their practice.
CALL TO ARTISTS
Artist Development
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.
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. To that end, we offer three core artist development workshops that are designed to support artists gain a deeper understanding of their art practice and to develop their practice so that they can achieve their professional and artistic goals.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
PoetryXCollage
PoetryXCollage is a printed journal of artwork and writing that operates at the intersection of poetry and collage. Artists and writers interested in submitting should prepare 3-5 page spreads for consideration. Page spreads must conform to exact specifications and include a general artist narrative and a short page spread narrative. Submissions are reviewed on an ongoing basis.
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
Folklore Collage Society, Volume 1
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 (cover artist) 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.
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.
CURRENT ISSUE
Kolaj #42
Since 2011, Kolaj Magazine has documented, reported on, and explored the amazing artists who make up the international collage community.
Inside Kolaj #42, we present G.E. Vogt’s collage project responding to Project 2025. Valeri Clarke reviews the kaleidoscopic work of American artist Dana Hart-Stone. British collagist Mark Murphy took his animated collage to the Glastonbury Festival. Irish collagist Anthony D Kelly interviews his sometime collaborator, Polish collagist Marta Janik. Karen Hirsch reflects on her mother Elinor’s decades of collage making. We profile Montreal collagist Maria Schamis Turner’s book, The Life & Fashion of Frédérick Le ShoeShoe and review Aqualamb’s survey of thirteen contemporary collage artists, Transformation, with an introduction by Paul Loughney. And so much more, including Artist Portfolios and more artists from the Kolaj Institute’s Curating Collage Workshop curating work from the Institute’s collection.
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.
CURRENT ISSUE
PoetryXCollage:
Volume 7
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.
Each issue presents six movements of work by artists and curators. Page spreads are meant to be free zones of thinking where the contributor has chosen all elements of the layout: font, image place, composition, etc.
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.
Kolaj Institute works in partnership with Kolaj Magazine to communicate, market, promote, publish, and distribute the work of the Institute. Kolaj Institute is the recipient of Kolaj Magazine‘s archives and collections.
Kolaj Institute is decentralized and works in partnership with a number of art venues and other organizations around the world to manifest its programs.