Registration

With your registration for Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2025, you have access to all sessions and activities, as well as the printed program guide for the event. You also receive  access to collage making and workshop spaces.

Registration: $175

CALL TO ARTISTS

Amuse-Bouche at LeMieux Galleries

Deadline to Submit: 15 May 2025. An amuse-bouche is a small tasting of what is offered on the menu, often served as an hors d’œuvre or appetizer. With this culinary tradition in mind, we would like to invite registered participants of Kolaj Fest New Orleans to submit to an exhibition that will take place at LeMieux Galleries during the event. The exhibition is being juried by Christy Wood, the director of LeMieux Galleries, and Kolaj Magazine Editor Ric Kasini Kadour. The exhibition will open during Arts District New Orleans’ First Saturday Art Walk and end on the last day of Kolaj Fest New Orleans, 7-29 June 2025. Space is limited and the logistics of this exhibition are particular. Please take a moment to read this Call in its entirety and ask any questions you may have before submitting.

CALL TO ARTISTS

Where Photography Meets Collage

Deadline to Submit: Wednesday, 28 May 2025. This exhibition, in conjunction with Kolaj Institute and Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2025, takes place at the New Orleans Photo Alliance in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 25 June-14 August 2025. New Orleans Photo Alliance and Kolaj Institute are working together to investigate the intersection of photography and collage. We are seeking work by artists who collage their own photographs, make photomontages, use a collage-like process in either the composition of photographs or in the darkroom. The exhibition is juried by Naomi White, artist and faculty chair of the photography department at the New York Film Academy in Burbank, California. We are open to any artwork where the artist feels the image speaks to this intersection. To learn more about the exhibition, requirements for entry, and submission fees, read the full call to artists.

Image: Excavations 7: Mallet and Chisel, Pick and Gad by Naomi White  
18″x14″; collaged artist photographs and magazine fragments; 2022. Courtesy of the artist.

AT KOLAJ FEST

Symposium

The program at Kolaj Fest is a unique experience. We have multiple goals and are serving multiple audiences: We aim to breakdown hierarchy and foster dialogue among art professionals working in a variety of capacities. We aim to build bridges between the collage community and the larger art world; between the art world and the general public. SEE PROGRAMS

AT KOLAJ FEST

Collage Making & Workshops

Collage making takes place each day of Kolaj Fest New Orleans. In addition to free time to make collage, the space will host artists leading demonstrations and workshops. The space has scissors, X-acto knives, glue, and a collection of papers and materials.

Collage making also takes place during Workshops and some Roundtable Discussions.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

Welcome Reception

Wednesday, 25 June 2025, 3-5PM

Join us for a Welcome Reception & Collage Making. Attendees will be able to check into Kolaj Fest, pick up their Registration Packet & Printed Program, and meet the organizers and other folks attending Kolaj Fest. Details coming soon. 

THURSDAY EVENING 

Collage on Screen

Thursday, 26 June 2025, 7-9PM
Cafe Istanbul

Collage on Screen, an eclectic evening of moving images, is part of Kolaj Institute’s Collage in Motion project, which explores collage and the moving image, a broad, loosely defined category that includes animations, film cut-ups, collage film, stop-motion, documentaries about collage artists, and other forms of media in which collage—as medium or genre—is present. The program features curated selection of short films and work made by Kolaj Institute’s Collage on Screen Artist Residents: Bella LaMontagne (Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, USA); Christine De Vuono (Guelph, Ontario, Canada); Darren Floyd (Glendale, Arizona, USA); Hillary Carlip (Los Angeles, California, USA); Leniqueca Welcome (Washington, DC, USA); Marria Khan (Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan); Rachelle Wunderink (Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada); Sara C. Rolater (Houston, Texas, USA); and Tonya Dee McDaniel (Sinajana, Guam, USA).

SATURDAY EVENING

Dinosaurs on the Moon: Stories from the World of Collage

Saturday, 28 June 2025, 7PM
Cafe Istanbul

“Dinosaurs on the Moon: Stories from the World of Collage” is an evening of storytelling, poetry, performance, comedy, and collage. Beaverton, Oregon stand-up comedian and collage artist Jordan Cerminara is working with other Kolaj Fest attendees to present a program that is part open mic, part evening of comedy. “I love making people laugh as much as I love meticulously cutting out disparate images and rearranging them to make a visual goof,” wrote Cerminara.

PROJECT

The Global Table, Tell Me While We Eat: Science, Art, & the Power of Collage

The E-Squared magazine’s founder and director, St. Louis, Missouri collage artist Emily A. Dustman invites participants of Kolaj Fest New Orleand to contribute fragments to a series of two foot by two foot, gessoed, wood panels. In “The Global Table: Tell Me While We Eat”, each panel will represent multiple plates or place-settings, and together will form a giant metaphorical table. Dustman will guide the process of connecting the stories and images to the science of the active compounds such as the key phytochemical or antioxidant or what part of the body it supports who its molecular or biological healing benefits. The collaborative artwork will be published in Kolaj Magazine alongside an article about art and science and become part of Kolaj Institute’s Collection of Collage Art. READ MORE

PROJECT

Special Agent Collage Collective’s Mission 27: Locative Kolaj

Special Agent Collage Collective is issuing a mission during Kolaj Fest New Orleans: Locative Collage. “The goal is for participants to create a collage that is temporarily placed into the Kolaj Fest environment in some way, whether that’s on the street, at a venue, or other place where someone may encounter it.” READ MORE

SYMPOSIUM

Symbols on a Cave Wall: Storytelling & Collage

Storytelling is a fundamental part of the human experience. Every culture does it, sometimes in wildly different ways. From painted symbols on a cave wall to role playing video games, people are telling stories but also sharing vital information, conveying ethics and morality, or building a cosmology that explains the world in which we live. During the symposium at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, we will hear from Andrea Lewicki, Carolyn E. Oliver, Jordan Cerminara (image above), Kirk Read, and Erica Trabold. Each of their practices is deeply involved with storytelling and collage. READ MORE

SYMPOSIUM

Paper, Wood, Metal, & Everything Else: Materials and Collage

Materials matter, particularly in collage where the material is never neutral. That magazine fragment, that clipping from a book, that piece of found cardboard has a life and a history and when we use it in our artwork, when we appropriate that piece of culture, we bring into our artwork its life and history. That is part of what makes collage magic. During the Symposium at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, we will hear from Julie Glass (image above), Julie Eisenberg Pitman, Robin Sanford Roberts, Flanzella, and Cindy Green; each of whom have a specific material practice about what they use, how they use it, and why it is important to them. They will speak about collecting and using paper, but also wood, metal, fabric, and other things. And then, if you want, we can talk about glue. READ MORE

SYMPOSIUM

Where are we?: Collage Artists & A Sense of Place

Artists play a critical role in developing, expressing, and understanding a sense of place. Approaching the social, physical, and spiritual landscape is fertile terrain for artists who can draw out elements of a place in ways that they are seen and thought about in new ways. During the Symposium at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, we will hear from Paula Mans, Bettina Homann (image above), and Laura Cannamela whose work speaks to a sense of place. READ MORE

SYMPOSIUM

Transformation in Collage as a Vehicle for Global Interruption

By collecting, chronicling and reconstructing objects, we create value and perhaps beauty with worthless things. The world is currently filled with unsheltered people, as well as migrants trying to find their way in unwelcoming cities—this work feels particularly poignant. How could this transformative approach be applied to social systems, politics and the environment? How could this change our cities and perhaps our world? During the Symposium at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, Julie Eisenberg Pitman (image above) will lead a panel on this topic with John Whitlock, Cheryl Chudyk, and Colleen Coleman. READ MORE

SYMPOSIUM

The World’s on Fire. Whatcha Gonna Do?: Politics in Collage

Collage as a political art form has a particular relevance to today as well as a strong historical context. From its roots in the European anti-facist and Russian revolutionary movements in the early 20th century to its expressions during the U.S. Civil Rights era to its current manifestations in the fight for social justice in South America, collage is used by artists around the world as an impetus for social and political change. During the Symposium at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, we will hear from Glenyse Thompson, Jody Zellen, Lori Petchers (image above), Suzanne Gore, and Jennifer R. Myhre about how their work seeks to contribute to the political discourse. READ MORE

SYMPOSIUM

Putting It Out There: Projects & Practices of Collage Artists

There is something different, however, when an artist chooses to put their work out in the community. It ceases to be about personal expression and becomes part of the community’s discourse. During the Symposium at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, we will hear from Jamie Hughes, Emily Denlinger, Flanzella  (image above), and Grace Wilbanks each of whom are putting their art into the cultural ecosystem. They are exhibiting and publishing; getting commissions; working it on social media; engaging their communities; and doing the work of culture all while trying to live lives as human beings with all that that entails. They will speak about contemporary art projects and their artist practice. READ MORE

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

Writer’s Corner

At Kolaj Fest New Orleans, Portland, Oregon author and collagist Kirk Read; Lynchburg, Virginia, USA writer and artist Erica Trabold; and Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland illustrator, writer, visual artist, and integrative psychotherapist Anthony D Kelly (image above) will host a Writer’s Corner, an informal workshop for those with a writing practice to connect with one another. Read wrote, “We will explore how these language and visual practices inform each other, how they compete and argue and agree in our minds and hands.” READ MORE

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

Grief, Loss, & Recovery

What is the role of art in grief, loss, and recovery? In this Roundtable Discussion, artists are invited to share projects centered around grief, loss, and recovery. Bloomington, Indiana, Mexican American collage artist Jennifer Lynn Davis; New Orleans, Louisiana artist Jamie Amdal Hughes (image above); and Belmont, Massachusetts artist Missy Arellano will share their art practice and facilitate a conversation. READ MORE

 WORKSHOP

Resilience & Welcoming in Hope: Collage, Installation, & Photography

In this workshop at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, participants will work together to create analog collage figures installation that will be photographed and filmed into a collage installation as part of Cape Girardeau, Missouri artist Emily Denlinger’s “Gain of Function: New Mutations/Old Traditions” project. The resulting photographs will become a zine published by Kolaj Institute and a photograph will be included in Kolaj Institute’s exhibition on photography and collage in December. READ MORE

WORKSHOP

The Exquisite Vivarium

Vivariums are a point of inspiration for Cincinnati, Ohio artist and writer Nandita Baxi Sheth who “considers arts-based processes as alternatives to language for philosophical thinking, that is, thinking through materials and making as an artist-philosopher.” At Kolaj Fest New Orleans, Sheth will lead a workshop, The Exquisite Vivarium, during which participants will create collaborative spoken word poetry and collages and experience Sheth’s unique pedagogical approach while adapting the Surrealist game of Exquisite Corpse with prompts about the environment, ecology, and making a world for future beings. READ MORE

WORKSHOP

1+1=∞ One plus one plus one equals infinity

“A collaborative workshop celebrating the art of juxtaposition, layering & superimposition” at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, Stephen Tomasko (Akron, Ohio (image above)) and Clive Knights (Portland, Oregon) will lead a collaborative collage making session that will result in a pop-up exhibition at the Saturday evening event. They wrote, “To the collagist, found images combine to form thresholds into new, unanticipated worlds opened by their combination and interaction.” READ MORE

WORKSHOP

Building Creative Communities: Arts-based Research Exercise

Belmont, Massachusetts artist and educator Missy Arellano works with students at Harvard University to use collage to express ideas about creative placemaking. In this workshop at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, she will lead an Arts-based Research activity that invites collage artists envision the role of art in their communities. Arellano will present her research into the value of the creative economy and invite “participants to reflect on what a creative city looks like in their own eyes.” READ MORE

WORKSHOP

Intuitive Collage: Surprises & Discoveries

How do we build trust in the process of discovery? Englewood, Florida artist Beverly Gordon is “an inveterate collector of imagery, paper, fabric, and natural detritus—objects like bones, shells and pods—which are part of my engagement with the natural world.” Using only printed materials on paper, participants in this Kolaj Fest New Orleans workshop will learn to intuitively select and position images to create interesting and meaningful collage compositions, and then discover what they wish to tell you. READ MORE

WORKSHOP

Small Circles, Big Stories: A Tiny Collage Workshop

In this making-focused workshop at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, San Diego, California artist Robin Sanford Roberts will guide participants as they explore the art of storytelling through miniature collages. Using 2″ wooden circular discs as a base, attendees will create layered compositions with vintage and contemporary papers, and text. This small-scale format encourages a focus on composition, storytelling, and detail, making each piece a unique visual narrative. READ MORE