PUBLICATION

Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2026 Program

Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2026 Program Book is a document of all things related to Kolaj Fest. In these pages, you will find a schedule and descriptions of sessions, bios and website information for artists and presenters, descriptions of evening events and special workshops. A full-color, printed book was included with your registration.

SITE VISIT

Trash as Materials: Visit The Green Project

Wednesday, 10 June 2026, Noon-3PM
The Green Project, 2831 Marais Street, New Orleans 70117

You can call it refuse or detritus or reclaimed materials or recycling or you can call it what it is, Trash. In collage, materials are never neutral. From how they are sourced to how they are used, the material a collage is made of shapes the story and experience of the artwork. In October 2025, Kolaj Institute opened an inquiry into Trash as Material through a series of residencies that culminated into an exhibition. Since 1994, The Green Project organization has promoted “a culture of creative reuse by diverting usable materials from landfills and cultivating a respect for their value.” They operate a salvage store and paint recycling program in the Bywater. During this event, Kolaj Fest New Orleans participants are invited to meet with Erin Genrich, Environmental Education Coordinator at The Green Project where several artists in the 2025 exhibition sourced materials for their artworks. Genrich will speak about her experience working with the artists and the role The Green Project plays in redirecting trash in New Orleans away from landfills. The first hour will be an informative tour of the project’s facilities after which, those who are interested are invited to stay and work with Genrich as she processes and experiments with recycled paint. (Note: If you stay for the second part of this visit, please wear clothes and shoes that you can get messy.) LEARN MORE

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

Welcome Reception

Wednesday, 10 June 2026, 3-5PM
*St. Noir Cafe, 1128 St. Roch Avenue
St. Roch Tavern, 1200 St. Roch Avenue
St. Roch Market, 2381 St. Claude Avenue

Join us for a peripatetic Welcome Reception in the heart of the St. Roch neighborhood, just across St. Claude Avenue from Kolaj Institute Gallery. Your first stop should be St. Noir Cafe to check into Kolaj Fest, pick up your registration packet, and meet the organizers and other folks attending Kolaj Fest. The venue writes, “Our cozy café is more than just a place to grab your favorite beverages; it’s a sanctuary designed for relaxation, connection, and good vibes. At St. Noir, we believe life is best enjoyed slowly, accompanied by a warm beverage and a mellow atmosphere.” Next door to the cafe, St. Roch Tavern will be hosting collage making. This lively, neighborhood corner dive bar has existed, albeit under different names, since the 1890s. It is also the home of El Caimán Gordo which serves up traditional Colombian cuisine. Across the small street in St. Roch Market you will find more collage making in this vibrant community hub and modern food hall. 

SPECIAL EVENT

Seance: Sound Collage

Wednesday, 10 June 2026, 7-10PM
Kolaj Institute Gallery

Sound collage regularly pops up in every genre of contemporary music and musicians are routinely bringing recorded sounds into their compositions. At Seance, New Orleans, Louisiana artist, musician, and filmmaker Robbie Morgan (who performs under the moniker Robah) will present an interactive evening of sound collage. Working from an altar of objects, the audience will be invited to make sounds which Morgan will record, distort, and compose into a piece of sound collage. Audience members are invited to bring their own objects that they can use to make sound. During the event, audience members will also be invited to make analog collage on 4″x4″ cards. A sample of the sound collage made during Seance: Sound Collage will be shared on Friday Night during Hot Dog in the Bayou as the soundtrack to a collage of Walter Ruttmann’s experimental, silent films from the 1920s. Kolaj Institute will publish a vinyl recording of the Seance later in the year. The analog collage made by audience members will be used as the album cover. Seance is the first in a series of activities in which Kolaj Institute will explore sound collage; its history and role in contemporary art.  READ MORE

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DAILY CONGRESS THURSDAY

Welcome to Kolaj Fest

Thursday, 11 June 2026, 10:30-11:15AM
New Orleans Museum of Art

Kolaj Institute Director Ric Kasini Kadour will officially open Kolaj Fest New Orleans at Thursday’s Daily Collage Congress and hear from a number of artists about projects, activities, and exhibitions taking place during the festival. Artists will be invited to contribute to the Great Collage Swap taking place on Sunday. Thursday’s Congress is the primary orientation to Kolaj Fest New Orleans. Nikola Janevski will present “New Orleans-Magic and Protection”, a collection of collage jackets made in collaboration with New Orleans artists during his Solo Residency at Kolaj Institute. In the series, the jacket becomes the substrate. “Each piece is about exploring some aspects of identity,” said Janevski. “The series is inspired by the art and culture of New Orleans working with people that are from New Orleans or live here.” At Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2025, Janevski debuted “Reveries: Fragments of Identity,” a collection of collaged shirts made in collaboration with Andrea Burgay. During a December 2025 Solo Residency at the Kolaj Institute, Janevski worked with New Orleans artists LaVonna Varnado Brown, Cindy Green, Christopher Kurts, Chachi Lewis, and Michael Pajón to make the new series, which will debut as a fashion show during Thursday’s Daily Collage Congress. LEARN MORE

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SYMPOSIUM

Divas, Blues, & Memories

Thursday, 11 June 2026, Noon-12:30PM
New Orleans Museum of Art

In early 2026, Hammonds House Museum in Atlanta, Georgia presented the exhibition, “Beau McCall: Divas, Blues, and Memories,” curated by New York, New York curator Souleo. The exhibition included over thirty collages that together celebrate music’s role as a source of inspiration, cathartic emotional solace, and marker of significant life experiences. McCall created each collage by hand using his personal archival photos and papers, along with images from his button-embellished artwork. Once completed, the works were scanned and printed on metal for luminosity. In this session, McCall and Souleo, will present the exhibition, focusing on how collage–and McCall’s use of clothing buttons–illuminate themes of identity and preserve memory. LEARN MORE

Immediately following the session, Lisa Rotondo-McCord, curator of the exhibition, “Robert Gordy: Outside the Mainstream,” will lead a walkthrough of the exhibition.

WORKSHOP

Stop-Motion Animation

Thursday, 11 June 2026, 2-5PM
Kolaj Institute

Emily Denlinger‘s collage making practice. Denlinger’s collage animation, Angel Baby vs. Drone Eagle, was part of Collage on Screen program at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2024. In 2025, Denlinger worked with Kolaj Fest New Orleans attendees to create short, stop-motion animations as part of her Gain of Function project. The film made with these animations will debut at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2026. In this workshop, Denlinger will demonstrate how animation is an accessible artistic practice without a lot of tech or start-up costs. Participants will learn how to use their mobile phones, a phone tripod, and free apps to create collage stop-action animations. Working in small teams, participants will create short animations with a collage figure with movable joints. LEARN MORE

SYMPOSIUM

Architecture as Collage, Collage as Architecture

Thursday, 11 June 2026, 3-4PM
Williams Research Center of the Historic New Orleans Collection

Collage and modern architecture share a closely connected history. In the early twentieth century, as mass printing, photography, advertising, and illustrated magazines became increasingly accessible, artists and designers began cutting, combining, and recontextualizing printed images as a way to imagine new realities. At the same time, architects associated with modernism were embracing new materials, technologies, and spatial ideas, using photography, photomontage, drawing, and printed media to communicate buildings and material explorations. Based in New Orleans, West Michigan–born artist and curator Seth Ter Haar will introduce Kolaj Institute’s Architecture & Collage Project and share examples of buildings and artwork at the intersection of these disciplines. Portland, Oregon artist and architect Clive Knights will speak about “An Architecture of Experiential Encounter” and discuss various examples of collages created by him and his architecture students “to redirect emphasis in architectural creativity toward experiential encounter.” Based in Lafayette, Louisiana, New Orleans-born artist and educator Michael Eble will discuss his architectural research, artwork, and the process he uses to turn architecture into abstract collage. Outreach Historian Robert Ticknor from the Williams Research Center at The Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC) will preview examples of an architecture and collage project from the Historic New Orleans Collection. LEARN MORE

THURSDAY EVENING

Collage on Screen

Thursday, 11 June 2026, 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. This year’s presentation will show the feature-length film, The Inquisitor, by New Orleans, Louisiana artist and filmmaker Angela Lynn Tucker. The program begins with a series of short films made by participants in Kolaj Institute’s 2025 Collage on Screen Artist Residency: Jennifer Myhre‘s (Sedona, Arizona) A Wonderful Opportunity for You and The Ear Pinchers; Apple Eye and Trinkets by Kingston, New York-based artist Sui Jenneris; Feeding the Birds by award-winning playwright Kate Lavut (Montreal, Quebec); FLOCK by Chicago, Illinois poet and artist Jennifer Roche; and the stop-motion animation Gain of Function: Hope by Emily Denlinger (Cape Girardeau, Missouri).  This event is open to the public. Admission is $10. (Kolaj Fest Registrants: Your badge is your ticket.) LEARN MORE

DAILY CONGRESS FRIDAY

Being an Artist in the World: Contemporary Art Projects

Friday, 12 June 2026, 10-11AM
Cafe Istanbul

As artists, we love to make. We love play and research and process. But then what? A major focus of Kolaj Institute’s Artist Development program concerns how we put our art out into the world. As collage artists, we have the added burden of moving our work through an ecosystem that may neither understand or appreciate what we are doing. The ongoing bifurcation of the Art Market and the collapse of mid-tier galleries that served as a bridge between spaces for emerging artists and the blue chip market adds to the struggle. During Friday’s Daily Collage Congress, Ric Kasini Kadour will share his thoughts on how thinking about one’s art making as a multifaceted contemporary art project can open doors to communities and institutions that are critical to getting one’s art out in the world. Cyndi Coon and Kim Larkin will introduce their book project, We Choose the Bear, that “uses collage to hold complexity, contradiction, humor, and grief, and to turn those fragments into something shareable.” Now published, We Choose The Bear is taking on life as a participatory practice, “one that invites others to remix, respond, and carry the conversation forward.” Valeri Clark will speak about her Flag Collages. Based in Washington DC, transgender, non-binary, and intersex collage artist, herbalist, and occultist Jul Drake will share their practice of engaging with their Irish-American and queer identities to explore and excavate duality and shadow. Columbus, Ohio artist Emily Morgan will share how her collage practice led her to curate “Pulp Stiction: Collage As an Act of Resistance,” an ambitious exhibition that will open at the end of 2026 with a series of workshops and panels. LEARN MORE

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POP-UP EXHIBITION

Contextualizing the Second Trump Administration

Friday, 12 June 2026, Noon-5PM
The Great Hall of the New Orleans Healing Center
2372 Saint Claude Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70117

Ginger Sisco Cook is an analog political collagist working on a four-year project to contextualize the Second Trump Administration by “combining vintage imagery with contemporary media to offer commentary on current political issues.” Drawing on her background in Political Science, she uses collage to respond to current events, visually and narratively chronicling developments during the Trump second administration. She wrote, “Since January 20, 2025, I have produced 260 analog collages using watercolor paper, magazines, and political mailings, each accompanied by written reflections. My aim is to capture the trends, historic events, and public sentiment of this presidency, offering viewers a visual record that encourages reflection on the American political landscape.” At Kolaj Fest New Orleans, Cook will present a table top exhibition in the Great Hall of the New Orleans Healing Center of collage that collectively presents “a visual representation of political developments in America since January 20, 2025.” READ MORE

SYMPOSIUM

Words as Pictures, Collage as Text

Friday, 12 June 2026, 2-3PM
Cafe Istanbul

Not simply illustration, when artists pair writing and artwork, an alchemy occurs where the words can become pictures and the collage can become text. Visual literacy and textural literacy mingle and build a new world for viewers and readers in the cosmology of the contemporary art project. During this panel, we will hear from collage artists and writers with overlapping, integrated practices. Leyden, Massachusetts collage artist, writer and photographer Trish Crapo will speak about moving between writing and collage practices and present the collage work of Alice Notley (1945-2025), author of forty books of poetry, who began working in collage in the 1970s. Dutch-born collagist and writer based in Montevideo, Uruguay Astrid Bant will speak about her forthcoming novel, Offering at the Altar of Impermanence, and the collage she made for it during her 2025 Solo Residency at Kolaj Institute. Portland, Oregon writer and artist Kirk Read will share an essay about looking at Southern literature as a source for creative inspiration. Jackson Heights, New York artist Christine Karapetian will speak about her book and collage project, A Scent of Otherness, “an art-text homage to my father Jack Karapetian, born 100 years ago in Iran.” Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland artist, writer, and integrative psychotherapist Anthony D Kelly will speak about the role writing plays in his collage practice. LEARN MORE

WORKSHOP

New Orleans Wooden Postcards

Friday, 12 June 2026, 1-3PM
Kolaj Institute

New Orleans is offbeat, unusual, vibrant, and alive–all part of the gumbo that has simmered for 300 years in Spanish, French, Caribbean, African, Cajun and Southern ingredients to form a five-star, cultural repast. Ellis Marsalis, jazz pianist, once said, “In New Orleans, culture doesn’t come down from on high, it bubbles up from the streets.” It is a most colorful city: from the architecture to the historic cemeteries to the unforgettable food to the street musicians, performers, and visual artists. Each sunrise and sunset creates an unforgettable moment. Even the trash is ephemera for the creative collagist.  Lead by collagist Carol M. Lynch, participants in this workshop will create an original 4”x6” wooden postcard, suitable for mailing, that explores their relationship between the New Orleans spaces and their emotions, using analog collage techniques to evoke a sense of connection and reflection on their time spent at Kolaj Fest New Orleans. After a brief introduction and demonstration of technique, participants will be provided with printed pictures of New Orleans and New Orleans-based literature that contain pictures, symbols and words. Once complete, the postcards will be sealed. Participants may also wish to bring their own pictures or other paper memoirs to the workshop, such as ticket stubs, a small piece of a found paper object, or a picture they took which they printed out. LEARN MORE

SYMPOSIUM 

Fragments & Formulations: The Art of Assembling a Child’s World

Friday, 12 June 2026, 3:15-4PM
Cafe Istanbul

What role can collage play in medicine? On this panel, Dr Nicole Crozat, Dr Hannah Scott, and Dr Cody Roi from Louisiana Children’s Medical Center’s Department of Child Psychiatry will share their experience using collage-based activities with child psychiatry trainees and attending physicians. Child psychiatry sits at the intersection of science, narrative, and art. Case formulation–the clinician’s synthesis of a patient’s history, presentation, and context into a working explanatory model–is fundamentally a creative act, yet medical training rarely frames it as such. The result is a generation of clinicians who are skilled diagnosticians but underequipped to sit with ambiguity, hold multiple interpretations simultaneously, or draw on humanistic traditions to enrich their clinical thinking. Collage offers a corrective. As an artistic practice rooted in fragmentation, juxtaposition, and the recontextualization of found material, collage demands exactly the cognitive and affective capacities that good clinical work requires: tolerance of incompleteness, attention to the unexpected connection, and willingness to revise. Bringing collage into medical education is not a matter of decoration or wellness programming–it is a pedagogical intervention aimed at the core of clinical reasoning. LEARN MORE

WORKSHOP

The Sun as Glue: Cyanotypes & Lumen Prints

Friday, 12 June 2026, 3:15-5PM
Kolaj Institute

The cyanotypes and lumen prints of New Orleans, Louisiana artist Robert A. Schaefer, Jr. demonstrate how the medium is an example of collage process, where the fragments are bound together through the photographic process. The sun is the glue. “The process of collage allows and even encourages me to use prints that I might in earlier times have thrown away, but now have become key elements of my collage…Viewers are invited to explore the many layers in my imagery and consider meanings and relationships as well as how these relationships relate to them personally.” Lumen prints date back to William Henry Fox Talbot’s (1800-1877) experiments with cameraless photography in the 1830s, which led to Talbot’s copyrighting of the Calotype Process in 1841, using silver nitrate and potassium iodide to make a paper negative which is then put on other papers and exposed in the sun. Lumen prints are commercial photo paper exposed to negatives or objects in the sun and placed in a bath of fixer to preserve the image. László Moholy-Nagy and his wife, Lucia Moholy, popularized the technique as a fine art form in the 1920s. Cyanotypes, named for their distinctive cyan blue, were invented in 1842 by English polymath John Herschel (1792-1871). A friend of the Herschel family, Anna Atkins (1799-1871), used the process to document botanical and textile specimens. Starting in 1872, the process was commercialized and used to print on fabric, to copy technical drawings and blueprints, and to make banknotes and postage stamps. Artists from 18th century fabric makers to early 20th century Pictorialists, to Late Modernists like Francesca Woodman, Barbara Kasten, David McDermott, and Peter McGough have used cyanotypes in their work, as do a number of contemporary artists. In this workshop, artists will collaborate on a cyanotype and a lumen print using the sun to expose digital negatives or objects to the paper and then drawing out the colors by placing them in various chemical baths. After Kolaj Fest New Orleans, the resulting artworks will become part of Kolaj Institute’s collection and exhibited at an exhibition of photography and collage in December 2026. The artworks will be scanned and the images will be sent to the contributing artists. Those interested in taking this workshop are invited to bring with them black-and-white negatives (analog or digital) or flowers leaves or small translucent objects. 

This Workshop is open only to registered participants at Kolaj Fest New Orleans. Pre-registration is required. Send an EMAIL to register.

LEARN MORE

WORKSHOP

More Is Required

Friday, 12 June 2026, 4-6PM
Cafe Istanbul

“More Is Required” is a collaborative collage project inspired by the life and legacy of Barbara Jordan, and by the making of The Inquisitor, a documentary film by Angela Lynn Tucker that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and on PBS’ Independent Lens in February 2026. “Barbara Jordan was a trailblazing congresswoman, orator, and constitutional scholar from Texas who became one of the most powerful voices in American political history,” wrote Tucker. “Collage is central to The Inquisitor itself—animated stop motion collages are woven throughout the film as a visual language for Jordan’s story. “More Is Required” extends that language into a communal practice. The project began as a solo exhibition at The Front in New Orleans in January 2026, and is now expanding into a participatory, traveling initiative that invites collage artists everywhere to respond to the prompt: More Is Required. What does it demand of you? What does it demand of us collectively? In this workshop, participants will use collage to respond to the project’s prompt—assembling images and text to define what “more” means in their own terms, and to surface what remains unaddressed. She wrote, “Kolaj Fest would be a founding community event of this project—the place where it opens up beyond one artist and becomes many voices.” Kolaj Fest Registrants: Your badge is your ticket to this event. LEARN MORE & RSVP

​FRIDAY EVENING

Hot Dog in the Bayou: Stories from the World of Collage

Friday, 12 June 2026, 7-9PM
Cafe Istanbul

Portland, Oregon comedian and collage artist Jordan Cerminara returns to Kolaj Fest New Orleans for an evening of storytelling, poetry, performance, comedy, and collage. “Hot Dog in the Bayou: Stories from the World of Collage” builds on the success of last year’s “Dinosaurs on the Moon”. The evening is part open mic, part evening of comedy. New Orleans chef and collage artist Heidi Hickman will be slinging hot dogs during the event. Kolaj Fest attendees who are interested in performing are encouraged to send an EMAIL with a few sentences about what you would like to do at the event. Kolaj Fest Registrants: Your badge is your ticket to this event. LEARN MORE

DAILY CONGRESS SATURDAY

Getting Down to Business

Saturday, 13 June 2026, 11AM-Noon
Cafe Istanbul

What possibilities are there for collage artists? Building on the previous day’s themes, at Saturday’s Daily Collage Congress we will hear from three artists who have taken wildly different paths to getting art out into the world. Kerrie Bellisario will speak about the artist as entrepreneur. In addition to running collage collectives, Emily Morgan will speak about her publishing project and Kirk Read will speak about how he uses collage in his social work. Andrea Burgay and Craig Deppen Auge will offer a preview of Cut Me Up Issue 17: Razzle Dazzle. We will get a preview of the Collage Art & Book Market taking place later in the day. 

LEARN MORE

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SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Collage Art & Book Market

Saturday, 13 June 2026, Noon-5PM
The Great Hall of the New Orleans Healing Center
2372 St. Claude Ave, New Orleans, LA 70117

The Collage Art & Book Market is an opportunity for the general public to meet artists and publishers and to take in the rich and diverse cultural production of the international collage community. The public will be invited to peruse vendor displays or attend a talk or demonstration. Some vendor highlights include: Cyndi Coon is selling copies of We Choose The Bear, co-written with Kim Larkin, and her original artwork. New Orleans-based, free-range bookstore Book Banter Books will have a table. Ric Kasini Kadour is offering original collages, a variety of zines, Prayer Cards for Witches, and Postcard packs. Dolores Hooper is selling packets of mixed papers, inked or stained paper, wallpaper samples, other papers she has collected from around the world, and items created out of paper, including handmade notebooks. Kolaj Institute is selling current and back issues of Kolaj Magazine, PoetryXCollage, World Collage Day Special Editions, and books including the recently published Folklore Collage Society Volume 1, Frankenstein, Magic in the Modern World, and Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide. From Uruguay, Astrid Bant is selling copies of her illustrated novel, Offering at the Altar of Impermanence, and prints of illustrations from the book. Carol M. Lynch is offering packets of printed papers printed on plates and/or hand-painted, sales of which benefit the People Program, a non-profit organization that provides social interaction and continued learning opportunities for adults 51+ in New Orleans. The papers were made by the collage class. Collagist Jul Drake is offering prints of their artwork. C. Joi Sanchez is offering limited-edition art journals, which are living archives, meditations, and acts of mutual care.

Want to be Vendor?
APPLY TODAY
Deadline: 31 May 2026

SYMPOSIUM

Autochthonous Cities, Anthropology, & Unfamiliarity: Collage Theory & Practice

Saturday, 13 June 2026, 1-2PM
Cafe Istanbul

On this panel, we will hear from three speakers, each with a unique take on collage theory and practice. Bucharest, Romania artist and educator Livia Marinescu will speak about her collage series, “The Third”, and the third space collage makes and her paper, “Between Unfamiliarity and Recognition: Collage as an Evocative Practice.” Durango, Colorado artist and professor Chad Colby will speak about the role of collage in his teaching and artist practices and a forthcoming chapter in Why Collage? Anthropology and Art in a Fragmented World (edited by Cathy Greenhalgh and Susan Falls) titled “Beyond Dada: Indigenous Reclamation through Contemporary American Collage.” Portland, Oregon collagist Clive Knights will speak about his series, “Autochthonous Cities,” as a reflection on the contemporary city. The collages are “the result of a kind of stewardship; intimations of newly born landscapes and settlements as they emerge from the detritus of print media produced by civil society.” LEARN MORE

WORKSHOP

Building Community with Collage

Saturday, 13 June 2026, 1-3PM
Kolaj Institute

How can collage artists use collage to build community? Since September 2025, New Orleans, Louisiana collage artist and clinical social worker Bethanie Mangigian has led the popular workshop series, Collage the Tarot, at Kolaj Institute Gallery. That experience has led her to develop an approach to workshop facilitation that fosters connection, curiosity, and creative exploration for artists and non-artists alike. During this workshop, Mangigian will outline “the facilitation framework I have been developing over the last six months to support individual artists who want to bring their work into community spaces in an accessible way that promotes creativity, community cohesion, and confidence for artists and non-artists alike.” She wrote, “Art making can be a solitary act, yet, hundreds of artists flock to Kolaj Fest New Orleans every year to be in community with one another. We are all seeking more ways to contend with late capitalism, loneliness, political and social division and the general existential crisis we confront through daily living. Art making, specifically collage, is uniquely positioned to provide an accessible way for community members to come together to express themselves and engage with others. Through the framework of Creativity, Community, Clarity, and Completion, I’ll lead artists through a template that allows them to leave with a fully designed, replicable workshop model they can bring into their own communities.” Discussions will include how to translate personal process into accessible, recurring community-based structure; how to guide non-artists with confidence and create psychological safety in group settings; and how to design time-bound workshops that lead to completion. Mangigian wrote, “Through both my personal artwork and my facilitation of creative spaces, I seek to nurture connection, imagination, and shared meaning. Collage models the world I want to inhabit: one where fragments are honored, where differences coexist in dynamic composition, and where beauty emerges through relationships.” LEARN MORE

SYMPOSIUM

Digital in the Real World

Saturday, 13 June 2026, 2:15-3:15PM
Cafe Istanbul

Life in the 21st Century seems to exist in two places. Our bodies live in a physical, material world where we eat, sleep, and move about. Our minds are constantly drawn into a virtual world where we text and scroll; make connections and argue. Our civic, romantic, work, social, family, and creative selves exist in both of these places. To live in this time means to flow between corporeal and digital realities; it makes sense that artists are doing the same. On this panel, we will hear from four artists who bridge these worlds. Selden, New York visual artist Marques DeLoney will present his new acrylic and collage on canvas series, “End of Expression” which he describes as “a commentary on the attack on personal identity and self expression in this new digital age. Fairfield, Pennsylvania artist T. Owens Union makes digital collage to “documented African American experiences to give current representation to those whose freedoms were too often erased.” Ogden, Utah artist Chris Miller uses digital collage to transform “photographs into artistic workspaces for exploring the significance of reportorial or abstract elements identified by the artist, as symbols or metaphors for underlying social or cultural issues.” New Orleans artist and clinical psychologist Cody Roi will speak about using artificial intelligence to interpret artwork. LEARN MORE

WORKSHOP

Collaging Over Time

Saturday, 13 June 2026, 3:30-5PM
Kolaj Institute

Originally from Los Angeles, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based “community artivist” Missy Arellano works with analog collage and photography, layering found imagery, and vintage ephemera to explore how Queer, disabled, and blended families and communities navigate belonging, grief, and joy. Her artwork asks, “Why does culture place such weight on bodies? What narratives can we rewrite by reimagining these constructs? How does time play a role in healing?” She wrote, “Through arts-based research exercises, I prompt participants to reflect on the role time plays in their lives and on how we move through life in all its forms….I believe that art has an intrinsic power to heal, especially visual art accompanied by music. Over the last year, I have engaged in analog artmaking with communities, bringing my collage supplies and record player to foster safe spaces where people can create freely and work to unravel wicked policy problems.” “Collaging Over Time” is part of a larger project during which Arellano works with communities to make and exhibit collaged clocks as a way of encouraging conversations about the role time plays in communities and healing. In this art-based research workshop, participants will join Arellano in a conversation around the importance and value of time. They will begin their journey by getting to know one another, what goals and dreams they have, and then talk about what time means to one another. Participants will be given a 9.75” circle to collage their interpretations, memories, or dreams for the past, present, and or future which will then be placed inside a plastic clock. “By thinking carefully about the conversations we have with time, we can possibly unlock answers or ideas for growth, especially within our community.” “Collaging Over Time” is an opportunity to “to tune out of the digital world and focus on all things analog, learn and grow in community, and find a glimpse of inner peace or even love” as participants listen to vinyl records and collage an analog clock face.” LEARN MORE

WORKSHOP

Preparing for the Big Ass Collage

Saturday, 13 June 2026, 4-5PM
Cafe Istanbul

This workshop time is for those people who want to make elements to include in the Big Ass Collage, perform scenes in the mockumentary, or help out with the filming.

SATURDAY EVENING 

Big Ass Collage

Saturday, 13 June 2026, 7-10PM
The Great Hall of the New Orleans Healing Center, 2372 Saint Claude Avenue, New Orleans

On Saturday Night of Kolaj Fest New Orleans, we are going to come together as a community and collaborate on a Big Ass Collage. At ten feet tall and fourteen feet wide, this 140 square foot collage will come together in a demonstration of communal, collective authorship at the heart of the International Collage Community. Throughout Kolaj Fest New Orleans, artists will be invited to prepare elements for the Big Ass Collage. The evening will unfold as part Amish barn raising and part sewing bee, with a roving film crew documenting the event for a future mockumentary about the event. Just to make it more interesting, actors will be performing scenes and those in attendance will be invited to improv along with them. Once completed, the Big Ass Collage will be exhibited at the New Orleans Healing Center before being installed in the Artist Bedroom of Kolaj Institute. The mockumentary will be screened at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2027.

Want to get more involved in the Big Ass Collage making and mockumentary? To prepare materials for the Big Ass Collage, you can pre-cut fragments or assemble a free-floating (substrate-free) collage of fragments and drop them off at the Info Table or bring them to the Saturday night event. We are also looking for people with improv acting or filmmaking experience. Send an EMAIL if you are interested.

EXHIBITION

Bird on a Wire

21 May-14 June 2026
LeMieux Galleries
332 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130

The idiom, “Bird on a Wire,” speaks to the tension between freedom and vulnerability, a precarious state of existence where at any moment one could fly or fall. Leonard Cohen’s 1968 song is an apology, a prayer, and an anthem. He sings, “I have tried in my way to be free.” The idiom also speaks to what it feels like to be an artist; constantly on the verge of success or failure, balancing security with unpredictability. The idiom also speaks to this historical moment where society itself feels precarious or to quote Cohen’s song, we are all “like a worm on a hook.” With this in mind, we invited participants of Kolaj Fest New Orleans to submit for this exhibition, which was juried by Christy Wood, the director of LeMieux Galleries, and Kolaj Magazine Editor Ric Kasini Kadour. Participating artists: Andrea Burgay | Monica Church | Valeri Clarke | Chad Colby  | Trish Crapo | Ben DiNino | Melanie Eubanks | Julie Glass | Cindy Green | Craig Howarth (image above) | Re Howse | Ric Kasini Kadour | Helen Kauder | Clive Knights | Samantha Lamph Len | Carol M. Lynch | Bethanie Mangigian | Jaclyn McCabe | Beau McCall | Robbie Morgan | Carolyn E. Oliver | Kirk Read | Robin Roberts | Robert A. Schaefer. Jr | Sandra Schilling | Martina Sciolino | Stephen Tomasko | William Tucker | LaVonna Varnado-Brown | Ashley Williams. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 10AM-5PM. READ MORE

After Kolaj Fest New Orleans

Our sincere hope is that you take the spirit of Kolaj Fest New Orleans home with you. Start a Collage Community: If you enjoyed making collage next to other people, consider starting a monthly meet up in your own community. Join a Kolaj Institute Project: Do you have a practice of working with folklore, poetry, photography, politics, architecture, or motion or an interest in developing such a practice? Let us know. Send us an email and we will let you know about how to submit to upcoming exhibitions and publications or about residencies you can join. Plan a Solo Residency: If you enjoyed New Orleans and want to spend more time making collage in the city, consider applying for a Solo Artist Residency at Kolaj Institute. Join the Artist Development Program: Want to develop your skills around curating, publishing, or writing? Or perhaps you want to engage in a wholesale review of your collage practice? Kolaj Institute’s Artist Development Program is a collection of four 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. Become a presenter at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, 23-27 June 2027: Have an idea for a panel, workshop, or project for next year’s festival and symposium? The submission portal will open this summer. Be the Glue that allows Kolaj Institute to continue to grow. Your donation helps make events like Kolaj Fest New Orleans possible. Find details at www.kolajinstitute.org