COLLAGE::BOOKS is a multi-day event about collage, community, & publishing that takes place in Montreal, 2-5 October 2025.
CALL TO ARTISTS
CALL TO ARTISTS & PRESENTERS
The Book as a Place of Collage Symposium
Deadline: Sunday, 24 August 2025. Kolaj Institute is partnering with ARCMTL to produce a full day symposium on the subject of collage and the book on 3 October 2025 in Montreal. The symposium will be a part of VOLUME 8 MTL, Montreal’s annual conference and fair devoted to art publishing and artists’ books. The Symposium will be part of a series of events for collage artists that will take place 2-5 October 2024. These events will run parallel to the events organized as part of VOLUME MTL and include collage making, visits to book collections, and networking. We would like to hear from those who wish to present a paper, practice, or book at this symposium and those artists with a practice of publishing, illustration, or poetry who wish to present at the symposium.
ABOUT THE EVENT
ABOUT COLLAGE::BOOKS
Join Kolaj Institute in Montreal, 2-5 October 2025, for COLLAGE::BOOKS, a multi-day event about collage, community, and publishing. The center of the event is a symposium on the book as a place for collage that will take place on 3 October 2025 in Montreal. Participants in COLLAGE::BOOKS will also enjoy networking events, collage making sessions, and site visits.
ABOUT VOLUME 8 MTL
COLLAGE::BOOKS is part of VOLUME 8 MTL, Montreal’s annual conference and fair devoted to art publishing and artists’ books. Events run parallel to the festival which includes workshops, panels, and a book fair. VOLUME 8 MTL is produced by ARCMTL, a Montreal-based non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving local independent culture. VOLUME 8 MTL presents works and programming in both English and French, including artists and publishers from all over Canada, the US and elsewhere.
REGISTRATION
The registration fee is $40 CAD before 6 September or $60 CAD after 6 September. This includes access to the symposium, collage making, events, and site visits. The registration fee also includes a program book and a copy of The Book as a Place of Collage, published by Maison Kasini Canada. The final registration deadline is Sunday, 28 September 2025.
WHERE TO STAY
Participants in COLLAGE::BOOKS and Volume 8 MTL will need to find their own accommodations. There is no host hotel. Montreal has a large number of full-service and boutique hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, and vacation rentals. Activities for COLLAGE::BOOKS will be centered Downtown, near Place des Arts, and in Little Italy (near the Jean-Talon Metro station on the Orange and Blue Lines). Tourisme Montréal offers an online booking service.
PUBLICATION
The Book as a Place of Collage
The companion to the 2019 edition of COLLAGE::BOOKS, The Book as a Place of Collage considers as a point of departure that the book, not the gallery, is the best place to experience collage. In this book, Kolaj Magazine Editor Ric Kasini Kadour investigates this idea using examples from the magazine’s collection of collage books and work by presenters at the symposium, Kadour traces the history of collage publishing, offers a taxonomy of various publishing activities, and discusses the function of the book in art practice, for art professionals, for viewer or collector. The book includes a statement identifying strategies for supporting the book as a means of distribution and (like exhibition) as a viable and respected part of an artist’s practice. Chapters include: The Exhibition Book as Travel; Sketchbook as Zine; Book as Extension of Practice; Collage as Illustration in Books; The Book as Calling Card; Book as Curatorial Project; Book as Sculpture; Process, Concept, & Material; Narrative & Object; Book as a Method of Distribution; and Collage Comic Books.
A copy of The Book as a Place of Collage is included in the registration for COLLAGE::BOOKS.
PROGRAM & EVENTS
Programs & Events will be announced throughout the month of August with the final program available by 6 September 2025.
NETWORKING
Meet & Greet
6PM, Thursday, 2 October 2025
Location: Bar Chez Tzina, 2581 Rue Masson
Join COLLAGE::BOOKS presenters, organizers and participants at an informal gathering at Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie neighbourhood karaoke bar.
MAKING
Collage Making with Jerome Bertrand
7PM, Thursday, 2 October 2025
Location: Jerome Bertrand Studio, 5155 rue d’Iberville, Suite 585
After our rendezvous at Bar Chez Tzina, we will head over to the studio of Montreal collage artist and photographer Jerome Bertrand for an evening of collage making.
Image: Triumphs by Jérôme Bertrand. Courtesy of the artist.
NETWORKING
Morning Coffee Meet & Greet
9AM, Friday, 3 October 2025
Location: Cafe SAT, 6 Place du Marché ( entrance is around the corner from SAT, 1201 St-Laurent)
Friday morning we will rendezvous at Cafe SAT in Downtown Montreal for an informal social gathering before heading to Artexte which is a short walk (less than a block) from the cafe. “Located next to Parc de la Paix, Café SAT is at the gateway to Chinatown and the Quartier des spectacles. Its charm lies in its friendly ambience and bright, stimulating atmosphere…We offer a selection of third-wave coffees in addition to a selection of in-house teas, prepared with care by our baristas. We also make our own unique creations, so come and try our homemade café-limo or our hazelnut affogato ice cream! We serve a menu of classic viennoiseries and decadent pastries.” WEBSITE
SITE VISIT
Artexte
10AM, Friday, 3 October 2025
Location: 2 St Catherine St East, Suite 301, Montreal, Quebec H2X 1K4
“Artexte is a library, research centre and exhibition space for contemporary art. Our unique print and digital document collection holds over 30,000 documents covering the visual arts from 1965 to the present, with an emphasis on the art of Canada and Québec.” They work to “conserve documentation on art for research on site and online; support research in our collection; present exhibitions, new works and public programmes; and publish art historical texts, anthologies and artists’ books.” At Artexte, we will explore how this unique organization supports the culture and history of art publishing. We will look at examples of collage books and talk about how artists document their practice. Some highlights will include R. F. Côté’s mail art project, Circulaire 132; a selection of historic collage exhibition catalogs, including “The Collage Show” (1971, Vancouver); and files on collage artists in the collection. Léa Boisvert-Chénier, Collections Librarian, and Jonathan Lachance, Documentation Technician, will guide us through the collection. We will look at a collection of historic books about collage and consider their role in the world and how they hold art history, as well as a collection of publications that explore xerography or copy-art. WEBSITE
“Artexte’s work documenting and preserving contemporary art visual and print culture is an inspiration,” remarked Kolaj Institute Director Ric Kasini Kadour. “As artists, we must think about our own history and how it will be available when we are gone. Publishing plays a key role in that effort.”
The Book as a Place of Collage
12-4:30PM, Friday, 3 October 2025
Location: Casa d’Italia, 505 Jean-Talon East, Montreal
The symposium, The Book as a Place of Collage, invites artists, gallerists, writers, poets, publishers, academic researchers to join a conversation around the role publishing plays in collage artist’s practice. The day begins with a session in which we frame the conversation about collage and the book. Ric Kasini Kadour will present an overview of the various types of books collage artists make. He compares the book against the exhibition as a means of diffusion and offers a taxonomy of various books and publishing activities. He concludes with a discussion of the role of the book in art practice, for art professionals, for viewer or collector. The bulk of the day is made up of presentations that will be organized as a series of panels with ample time for questions and discussion. In the final session, we identify strategies for supporting the book as a means of distribution. The final session will be structured in a way that articulates general strategies and recommendations to artists, galleries, art centres, museums, libraries, and booksellers. A full roster of speakers will be published in early September. Those interested in presenting may consult the Call to Artists, the deadline for which is 24 August 2025.
Image: Landlines by Clive Knights
8″x190″; (handmade accordion-style book) paper collage and graphite on Indian handmade paper; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Consider this: The book, not the gallery, is the best place to experience collage. This sentiment has broad implications for how collage artists work and how their work is received by an art world whose orientation is decidedly fixed on the gallery wall. Can the book provide for the functions that the exhibition has provided to artists for so long? Will the public accept a book as an experience of artwork or even as an object of art in and of itself? Unlike an exhibition where only original work is on display, a book depends on reproduction for its distribution. And if we now accept the book as on par with the exhibition, how does that affect how we think of the history of art publishing that has come before? These are the questions we seek to answer.
BOOK FAIR
Volume 8 MTL
Noon-6PM Saturday, 4 October 2025 & Sunday, 5 October 2025
Location: Casa d’Italia, 505 Jean-Talon East, Montreal
“Providing a gathering space for English and French artists based in Montreal, North America, and internationally, Volume MTL encourages and supports the arts publishing sector from many angles. At a time where art publishing and innovative and artisanal artists’ book production is exploding around the world, Volume MTL fosters the development of the sector locally and nationally by generating communication between audiences, publishers, and artists. The doors of Casa d’Italia, located directly across from Jean-Talon Metro Station, will open from noon to 6 PM to bring together over fifty artists, writers, and publishers of art books and magazines from across Canada and beyond.” On both days of the fair, fairgoers will have the opportunity to attend discussions and presentations in both French and English on a variety of topics from artists, writers, and publishers.
At the fair, registered participants of Collage::Books are invited to display and sell books at the fair on Saturday and Sunday as part of Kolaj Institute’s booth. Kolaj Institute will be staffing the table, so registered participants may take part in the programming. Instructions will be sent with the confirmation of registration. Those with questions are encouraged to email.
In addition to current and back issues of Kolaj Magazine, Kolaj Institute will be showing a number of its publishing projects including Folklore of the Upper Nithsdale, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Artists in the Archives, Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream, Standard Practices in Dressmaking, Magic in the Modern World, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide. In addition to books, Kolaj Institute’s print folios for Frankenstein: 21st Century, Art to Resist & Survive Authoritarianism, and Artists in the Archives will be available to view.
INVITED PRESENTERS
Presenters will be announced throughout the month of August with the final program available by 6 September 2025.
R. F. Côté
Quebec City, Quebec
R.F. Côté is a Quebec City-based collagist and mail artist. His mail art zine, Circulaire 132, first appeared in 2006 with Issue 447 appearing in August 2025. He describes it as, “A general mail art zine that allows mail artists to exchange ideas and promote various projects.” This project was spotlit in the 2021 World Collage Day Special Edition. He collaborated with Sabine Remy on her “Unequal Twins” collage artist book project. Côté’s work is part of The Schwitters’ Army Collection of Collage Art, Artexte, and in Quebec’s National Library and Archives. circulaire132.blogspot.com
Image: untitled collage by R. F. Côté. Courtesy of the artist.
Heather Wishik
Woodstock, Vermont
Heather Wishik is a Jewish lesbian printmaker, collage artist and poet living with her spouse, Susan, in Woodstock, Vermont, USA. She studied poetry at Goddard College; printmaking at the Provincetown Art Association and Fine Arts Work Center; and printing and drawing at the Fine Arts Work Center, the Provincetown Art Association, Castle Hill Center for the Arts, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her poetry has been published widely since the 1980s. Her collages, poellages, and prints have been shown in solo and group shows in Montpelier, Pomfret, and Woodstock, Vermont. She took part in Kolaj Institute’s Poetry and Collage Virtual Artist Residency in December 2024 and was part of the Politics in Collage: Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide Virtual Artist Residency at Kolaj Institute in January 2025 and is featured in the resulting book, Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide by Martin Mycielski.
Image: They Will Create Chaos by Heather Wishik (7″x5″; magazine papers; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.)
Maria Schamis Turner
Montreal, Quebec
Montreal-based artist Maria Schamis Turner holds a BSc. in Honours Physics. She also holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of the literary magazine carte blanche, as well as producer of the live storytelling series “This Really Happened”. She started exploring visual forms of self-expression after her father’s death in 2017. She studied with Montreal artists Sarah Mangle, Julie Lequin, and Mariella Borello and took workshops at the Centre des arts visuels. The Canadian indie-folk group Caution Horse commissioned her to create art for their 2024 EP Wykyk. She was a Kolaj Institute Solo Artist in Residence, 29 April to 12 May 2024. An outcome of that residency, The Life and Design of Frédéric Le ShoeShoe, was released in March 2025. Learn more at www.turneredits.com.
Image: Cover image of The Life and Design of Frédéric Le ShoeShoe by Maria Schamis Turner. Courtesy of the artist.
Andrea Lee
Fenelon Falls, Ontario
Andrea Lee is a mixed media artist, writer, coach, book editor and speechwriter. Her Master’s degree thesis explored the intersection of visual art and social justice. In 2024, she studied woodblock printing at the Karuizawa Mokuhanga School in Nagano, Japan, following the footsteps of Terry McKenna in the lineage of Masahiko Tokumitsu. Lee was part of the Politics in Collage: Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide Virtual Artist Residency at Kolaj Institute in January 2025 and is featured in the resulting book, Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide by Martin Mycielski. The artist has work in private collections in Canada, Japan, Taiwan, and the U.S. Andrea Lee is a first-generation Canadian of Taiwanese descent, who lives and works in Ontario.
Image: With Abandon from the “Growing a Spine” series by Andrea Lee (12″x9″; collage and pen-and-ink on gouache; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.)
Léa Boisvert-Chénier
Montreal, Quebec
Léa Boisvert-Chénier, Collections Librarian at Artexte, holds a Master of Information Studies (MISt) from McGill University and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Art History at Concordia University. She is particularly interested in the intersection of knowledge and power, and in initiatives for decolonization, inclusion and resistance in libraries. www.artexte.ca
Jerome Bertrand
Montreal, Quebec
Originally from Gatineau, Montreal collagist and photographer Jérôme Bertrand studied at Dawson College. His collage work was featured in the Kolaj Institute publication, The Tissue Box Book by Québec Collage (2021) and Collage Artist Trading Cards, Pack 8. In 2019-2020, his temporary collage installation, Heat Wave, was installed on the York Street Stairs in downtown Ottawa, and featured in Kolaj 26. In 2021, his collage installation, Hommage à Riopelle, 2e mouvement, was placed on the side of a building at 59 Wellington Street in downtown Gatineau. In 2024, the City of Gatineau commissioned the artist for a large collage installation in the Aylmer district, Renaître de ses cendres (Rebirth from the Ashes). Bertrand’s self-published collage volume, East of a 100th, appeared in 2023. The artist lives and works in Montreal’s Rosemont-Petite Patrie neighbourhood. www.jeromebertrand.com
Image: Cover of East of a 100th by Jérôme Bertrand. Courtesy of the artist.
CONVENOR
Ric Kasini Kadour
Ric Kasini Kadour is a writer, artist, publisher, and cultural worker. He is editor and publisher of Kolaj Magazine, a printed, internationally-focused magazine about contemporary, fine art collage. He has written for a number of galleries and his writing has appeared in Hyperallergic, Vermont Magazine, Seven Days, Seattle Weekly, Art New England (where he was the former Vermont editor) and many others. Kadour is the author of several ‘zines, including Art Is Food (2006), How to Price Your Artwork (2005), Everything That Is Wrong With You & How To Fix It (2015), I Am Calling Today… (2016), What Will Be of Us? (2017), Apotheosis Ruskin (2017), The Veneration of Ruskin (2017), My Pet Rock: A Tragedy & Love Story (2018), Kunstkammer Field Report: Rutland (2019), Eight Sonnets (2019), What Good Is a Photograph? (2020), America’s Promise (2021), and I Took a Trip to the Unknown Language (2023). He is also the author of several texts related to his curation work, including, Where the Sun Casts No Shadow: Postcards fom the Creative Crossroads of Quito, Ecuador (2019), Rokeby Through the Lens (2019), Contemporary American Regionalism: Vermont Perspectives (2019), Mending Fences: The Culture of Repair in Art & History (2020), The Money Show: Cash, Labor, Capitalism, & Collage (2021), Artists in the Archives (2022), Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream (2022), and Magic in the Modern World (2024). He also wrote the introductory text for Martin Mycielski’s Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide (2025). Kadour maintains an active art practice and his photography, collage, and sculpture have been exhibited throughout North America and is in private collections in Australia, Europe and North America. He has produced exhibitions as a gallerist and curator in Albuquerque, Milwaukee, Montreal, New Orleans, and throughout Vermont. His community organizing efforts have resulted in a number of large scale art events in North America and beyond. Kadour holds a BA in Comparative Religion from the University of Vermont and was the recipient of a 2020-2021 Curatorial Fellowship from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Kadour splits his time between Montreal and New Orleans. Learn more at www.rickasinikadour.com.