CURRENTLY ON VIEW

Joy & Grief: An Exhibition of Collage

Through 31 May 2025. Joy and Grief: These two deeply human experiences are deeply connected. In New Orleans, our funerals start with grief, the somber second line’s somber dirge, and end in celebratory joy as we shake our asses and march down the street. On Mardi Gras, the Krewe of Saint Anne parades to the Mississippi River, a joyous occasion to pour the ashes of our lost loved ones into the water. In this city, we know that joy and grief are two sides of the same coin. You cannot fully understand one without the other. In this exhibition, fourteen International Collage Artists explore the obversity of Joy and Grief. 

Despite Her Love, Starchild Returned by Beth I. Robinson
(8″x8″x1.5″; wood canvas, watercolor crayon, photo, fabric, and ephemera; 2023)

EVENT

Collage Artist Meet-Up

Tuesday, 27 May 2025, 6-8PM

Cost: Free

At Kolaj Institute, we reject the myth of the solitary artist and believe that artists are better in community with one another. In that spirit we invite working artists to join us for a monthly meet-up to get feedback on work, and network with one another. Find out who’s looking for folks to exhibit, meet other working artists, and get the low-down on the skinny of what’s up and up. The event is hosted by LaVonna Varnado Brown at Kolaj Institute Gallery. RSVP is helpful but not necessary. Artists are encouraged to bring artwork to share with the group. Questions? Send an EMAIL.

FESTIVAL & SYMPOSIUM

Kolaj Fest New Orleans is 25-29 June 2025

Kolaj Fest returns to New Orleans for a gathering of collage artists and art professionals; a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society; where the focus is how we celebrate and elevate the status of collage. Presenters will lead panel discussions and explore key curatorial issues. Artists will exhibit artwork, and create special activities and demonstrations. We will meet, network, share community, camaraderie, and fellowship. We will leave armed with new ideas for our artmaking, writing, and curatorial projects, but more importantly, we will leave Kolaj Fest New Orleans prepared to champion this artform in the year to come.

COLLAGE MAKING

Two-sided Reverse Collage

2-4PM, Saturday, May 10, 2025
Kolaj Institute Gallery
FREE

In celebration of World Collage Day, New Orleans collage artists Leigh Jaffe and Bethanie Mangigian are hosting an open collage making session where participants can express their creativity by making a two-sided “Reverse Collage”. The event will be an afternoon of high-enjoyment collage making. Organizer Leigh Jaffe writes, “Are you looking for a way to express creativity without pressure or a need for artistic skills? Does having an outlet for your creativity appeal to you? Come and make a two-sided Reverse Collage that you can take with you and display at home. All materials will be provided and all ages are welcome.” The event is free, but space is limited, pre-registration required.

Bethanie Mangigian’s interest in collage “stems from a belief in the power of our collective ability to rewrite broken or incomplete narratives about ourselves and the world around us through constructing new, powerful visual stories that stitch together and integrate our lived experiences in ways that hold our whole humanity as sacred.”

Leigh Jaffe is a collage and assemblage enthusiast and developing artist. She enjoys repurposing mundane materials like candy and tea wrappers and using ethically-sourced local plant material in her works. Leigh looks at objects in our everyday world through the lens of collage—as either material or canvas, or inspiration.

ARTIST TALK

“Amdalia” by Jamie Amdal Hughes

7:30PM, Saturday, May 10, 2025
Kolaj Institute Gallery
FREE

At the center of the Joy & Grief exhibition on view at Kolaj Institute Gallery through 31 May 2025 is a large collage installation by New Orleans-artist Jamie Amdal Hughes. The artist wrote, “’Amdalia’ was born out of grief and trauma.” The artwork was made in response to the successive deaths of her father, architect James Russell Amdal, and mother, artist Nancy “Lou Lou” Martin Amdal, in 2024 and 2023 respectively. “The collages I created in this period helped me reconnect with the joy, love, and creativity that was the foundation of our Amdal family. This exhibit is my attempt to uplift and honor my family legacy, while still being true to the pain and struggles that are intertwined with our story. The process of analog collage: selecting meaningful pieces, composing them in a new context and framework, and the tactile and emotional experience of assembly, has been extremely therapeutic for me, enabling me to both hold on to the memories and let go of the pain. The exhibit is a collection of those works intertwined with meaningful pieces of my family story, essentially a collage of my grief. While ‘Amdalia’ is extremely personal, I hope that viewers may be inspired to reconcile dichotomies within their own families and find healing in their own creative processes.” Hughes will speak about her installation at 7:30PM on May 10, 2025 as part of World Collage Day and Second Saturday Bywater Art Walk.

ARTIST TALK

Cottonopolis: Cathy Greenhalgh

Saturday, April 5th, 2PM
Kolaj Institute Gallery
Cost: Free

As part of her Solo Artist Residency at Kolaj Institute, Amble, Northumberland, United Kingdom collage artist, film-maker and writer Cathy Greenhalgh will spend her time in New Orleans researching and collecting materials connecting New Orleans and Liverpool and Manchester during the industrial revolution cotton trade era. “My ancestors worked in Lancashire cotton mills during the Civil War and the Lancashire Cotton Famine caused by the blockading of Southern ports,” said the artist.” The research will contribute to a feature-length, documentary film project Greenhalgh has been working on for nearly a decade. “The film considers power, time and agency in the manufacture of powerloom and handloom cotton in contemporary India, through the reflections and consciousness of people from ‘Manchesters.’ Expressing this complex film fabric required texturing a cinesonic chronotope and an aesthetic mirroring affective relations with cotton processes.” In addition to Manchester, Liverpool, and New Orleans, Greenhalgh reflects on the role cotton has played in the histories of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India and Lodz, Poland. On Saturday, 5 April 2025, Greenhalgh will give a talk about the project and her approach to filmmaking and artwork. “In this sensory ethnographic historiography, time exists within the stories of individuals: cyclical, progressive, sacred, ancestral, historical, traumatic, meditative, memory, machinic, digital, crafted, spontaneous, creative, political, economic…time.”

The talk will also focus on what can be achieved with film as a medium and how making collage can approach aspects and address the subject with a different aesthetic and highlight other information and juxtapositions hard to achieve in a film. The artist will present clips from the film Cottonopolis.

Chewbacchus Parade Viewing Party

Saturday, 1 February 2025, 6-10PM

Cost:
Tickets are $35, $50, $75 and $100

From 6PM to 10PM on Saturday, 1 February 2025, come to Kolaj Institute’s gallery in the New Orleans Healing Center and enjoy the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus from our balcony that looks onto the corner of St. Claude and St. Roch. This is an ideal venue on a second story balcony overlooking the parade, two blocks from the start!

Click here for a map of the parade route and more info

At the Viewing Party, enjoy music, pulled pork sliders, king cake, space punch, and other munchies. There are four types of tickets, each in limited supply. The basic ticket is $35. All tickets include a wristband, two drink tickets, and food during the event. Bar service includes a selection of beer and wine, soft drinks, and liquor. 

Those who donate a minimum of $50 will receive a ‘zine. Those who donate a minimum of $75 will also receive a collage print from the “Hello Robot” series. Those who donate a minimum of $100 or more will also receive an original collage. 

Collage making supplies will be available, and we invite you to make a space-themed collage! 

The event is appropriate for ages 12 and up. Tickets are required for entry.  

This event supports the ongoing work of Kolaj Institute.

Open Studio with Kolaj Institute Artist-in-Residence Marcy McChesney

Friday, 24 January 2025, 4-6PM

Cost: Free, limited space

During her Solo Residency, San Antonio-based artist, Marcy McChesney is creating a body of work that is specific to the city of New Orleans as a subject itself. The artist is investigating the women of New Orleans and their role in society, whether through family ties, healing capacities, religious practices, etc. 

On Friday, January 24, 2025, 4-6PM, the public is invited to visit Kolaj Institute Gallery to meet the artist and see how the artwork is progressing.

Learn more about Marcy McChesney’s Solo Residency https://kolajinstitute.org/solo-residencies/

Open Studio with Kolaj Institute Artist-in-Residence Melissa Eder

Saturday, 11 January 2025, 2-4PM

Cost: Free, limited space

During her Solo Residency, New York City-based artist Melissa Eder has continued to explore her “Still Life with a View” project. She is making more elaborate still lifes in the studio which she is photographing and creating mixed media works on canvas. The works include images of New York City and New Jersey, as well as photographs that she has taken in and of New Orleans.

On Saturday, January 11, 2025, 2-4PM, the public is invited to visit Kolaj Institute Gallery to meet the artist and see how the artwork is progressing.

Learn more about Melissa Eder’s Solo Residency https://kolajinstitute.org/solo-residencies/

Getting Started with Collage

Thursday, November 14th, 6:30 to 8:30PM

Cost: $50 for one, $75 for two

Are you curious about collage but not sure where to start? This workshop is for you. Kolaj Institute Director Ric Kasini Kadour guides participants into the world of collage. He will provide an overview of the medium and some tips for gathering materials and getting started. He will discuss various approaches to cutting and composition. Participants will collaborate on a group collage and then make their own.

All supplies are provided. Kolaj Institute has a variety of supplies, including magazines, books, ephemera, substrates, X-acto knives, and of course, scissors and glue. Attendees are welcome to bring their own materials or projects to work on. Donations of materials are always appreciated.

Participants will leave the workshop with a collage they made and a deeper understanding of how they can make collage at home.

This workshop is for ages 18 and up.

Through a Glass Brightly: A Collage on Glass Workshop

Saturday, November 9th, 2-5PM

Cost: $75 for one, $100 for two

Participants will explore using glass as a substrate for mixed media collage with collagist Julie A Bell. Similar to reverse painting, the collages are made on the back of a clear glass plate to be viewed from the front. Participants will learn the technique of working from foreground to background and in mirror image (materials placed on the left of composition will appear on right when the glass is turned over). The result is a striking collage composition with a clear glass finish. In addition, participants will explore repetitive patterns through stenciling, visual texture, and building layers through transparencies. All necessary materials are included.

From Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Julie A. Bell was artist in residence at Kolaj Institute in April 2024 where she worked in a maximalist, abstract style, using found materials, handmade paper, acrylics and inks, Bell developed a series of collages that explores the history and tourist culture of the city. Her unique and eclectic imagery is rooted in the exploration of place, traditional culture and the evolving social landscape. Using found materials, handmade paper, acrylics and inks, Bell carefully constructs compositions that are full of energetic color and layered meaning.

Open Studio with Kolaj Institute Artist-in-Residence Emmanuel Laflamme

Saturday, 2 November 2024, 2-4PM

Cost: Free, limited space

Montreal-based collagist Emmanuel Laflamme writes, “Combining cultural references, I combine ancient and modern myths to share my perspective on the world, at once tender and critical. The absurd is my playground and anachronism is my specialty.” During his residency, Laflamme will create a new series of collages that push his boundaries and focus on developing a better understanding of his own artistic practice. He will meet with New Orleanians and collect materials locally, working from what he finds. He will seek inspiration in archives and local history museums. The body of work he creates in New Orleans will influence future work in painting, mixed media and other artistic endeavors.

On Saturday, 2 November 2024, 2-4PM, the public is invited to visit Kolaj Institute Gallery to meet the artist and see how the artwork is progressing. 

Learn more about Emmanuel Laflamme’s Solo Residency https://kolajinstitute.org/solo-residencies/