PROJECT OVERVIEW

The mediums of collage and photography are bound together in an ongoing dialogue. The photographer makes pictures of the world. The collagist remixes those pictures to tell a story about the world we live in. “Today, we’re taking more photos than at any previous time in history,” noted EyeEm contributor Lars Mensel. “Many photographers are asking themselves how to set their work apart from that of their peers. Photography has become less about the skill to take technically perfect pictures–most modern smartphones accomplish this at the touch of a button–but how pictures are combined to tell a story.” In partnership with the New Orleans Photo Alliance, the Photography & Collage project explores the intersection of these two mediums. We ask, What happens when a collagist picks up the camera? What happens when a photographer collages their pictures? 

Throughout 2024 and 2025, Kolaj Institute hosted virtual residencies during which artists made work at the intersection of photography and collage. Each June, New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery hosted exhibitions as part of Kolaj Fest New Orleans and in December 2024, Kolaj Institute presented “Camera & Collage” at its gallery in New Orleans. These activities along with that of a number of solo artists in residence and articles in the magazine have given us many points of reference to view and think about the intersection. In December 2025, Kolaj Institute will present an exhibition at its gallery in New Orleans and publish a book about their findings.

Current Activities

DECEMBER 2025

EXHIBITION & BOOK: Pictures at the Intersection of Photography & Collage

“Pictures at the Intersection of Photography & Collage”, the fourth exhibition in a series in which Kolaj Institute is exploring the intersection of Photography & Collage, will take place at Kolaj Institute Gallery from 10 December 2025 to 24 January 2026. The exhibition is part of PhotoNOLA 2025, an annual celebration of photography in New Orleans, produced by the New Orleans Photo Alliance in partnership with museums, galleries, and alternative venues citywide. On 13 December 2025, Kolaj Institute will launch a book about the project at the PhotoBOOK Fair in the historic Patrick F. Taylor Library at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

Image: untitled by Ric Kasini Kadour. 10″x8″; publicity photo for the 1977 film Heroes with Henry Winkler; 2025. 2025-08-09-A. Courtesy of the artist.

Project Leads

Lance Rothstein

Lance Rothstein has been making collages with trash and found objects, then leaving them out on the streets since 2010. A professional photojournalist by trade, he’s worked for many major newspapers and publications throughout the US and Europe, but he returned to his art school roots after moving to Belgium with his wife in 2009 and dove headfirst into producing several forms of Street Art. His artwork has been shown in galleries in Belgium, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. His work has been featured in Wallflowers: Collage as Street Art, Be a Pal magazine, Unfamiliar Vegetables, the World Collage Day 2018 Special Edition, and Circulaire 132. Works of his are also in the permanent collection of the Doug + Laurie Kanyer Art Collection in Yakima, Washington as well as The Schwitters’ Army Collection of Collage Art in Sanquhar, Scotland, and the Postcards for Democracy traveling collection by Mark Mothersbaugh and Beatie Wolf. WEBSITE

Image: Photographic Relationship Six (St. Claude Tire) by Lance Rothstein. 8″x10″; silver gelatin darkroom prints with different toners; 2024. Courtesy of the artist.

Project History

SEPTEMBER 2025

Photography & Collage Virtual Artist Residency

Over the course of four sessions in September 2025, the Photography & Collage Virtual Artist Residency invited photographers and collage artists to come together in dialogue, learn from one another, and make artwork for a series of exhibitions that explore the intersection of collage and photography. We asked the artists, What happens when a collagist picks up the camera? What happens when a photographer collages their pictures? Presentations explored collage in theory, artist practice, the ecosystem of art, the state of photography, and the history of photography and collage. Artists shot with their own camera, in whatever process they chose (film & develop or digital & print), and then made collage with the photographs they took. During the residency, artists made an artwork that will be exhibited at Kolaj Institute’s Gallery in December 2025 as part of PhotoNOLA 2025, an annual celebration of photography in New Orleans, produced by the New Orleans Photo Alliance in partnership with museums, galleries, and alternative venues citywide. Artists: Adriana Gordillo (Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA), Anindita Sengupta (Rancho Palos Verdes, California, USA), David D’Agostino (Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA), Gerardo Morantes (New York, New York, USA), Heidi Smith (Middletown Springs, Vermont, USA), Inga Finch (Panacea, Florida, USA), Julia Maciel Mendes (Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil), Leah Flanagan (Dallas, Texas, USA), Lisa Sibley (Fort Belvoir, Virginia, USA), Phyllis Schwartz (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), Rebecca C. Steiner (Old Lyme, Connecticut, USA), Riley Kizziar (Everett, Washington, USA), Sheryl Watson (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA), and Stephanie L. Paine (Lafayette, Louisiana, USA). READ MORE

Image: Embryo Magic by Stephanie Paine. Courtesy of the artist.

JUNE TO AUGUST 2025

EXHIBITION: Where Photography Meets Collage

25 June to 14 August 2025 at the New Orleans Photo Alliance Center. Since May 2024, Kolaj Institute has been investigating the intersection of photography and collage through a series of exhibitions and artist residencies in partnership with the New Orleans Photo Alliance. This exhibition is the third in the project. The exhibition was juried by Naomi White, an abolitionist feminist, artist, and educator, working on ideas at the intersection of political ecology and photography. READ MORE

Image: A Negative That Holds Her Shadows III by Reyna Barragan. Courtesy of the artist.

MAY 2025

TALK: Pictures at the Intersection

In celebration of World Collage Day on 10 May 2025, Ric Kasini Kadour presented some preliminary results of Kolaj Institute’s inquiry into the intersection of photography and collage at the New Orleans Photo Alliance Center. This research has been guided by the idea, “The mediums of collage and photography are bound together in an ongoing dialogue. The photographer makes pictures of the world. The collagist remixes those pictures to tell a story about the world we live in.” He also spoke about how Kolaj Institute‘s ongoing partnership with the New Orleans Photo Alliance will unfold in the coming year. MORE

NOVEMBER 2024 TO JANUARY 2025

EXHIBITION: Camera & Collage

29 November 2024 to 25 January 2025 at Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans. The exhibition brought together artists from Australia, Kuwait, Mexico, Canada, and the United States each of whom have developed a practice that sits at the intersection of collage and photography. The artwork demonstrated a variety of techniques and approaches. The artists were engaged in collage as process; making art with family archives and found materials; exploring alternative processes; and challenging how we think about images in a world flooded with them. In doing this, the artists invite viewers to consider questions of identity and gender; family and memory; the materiality of photography; and history and artist process. The exhibition was part of PhotoNOLA 2024, an annual celebration of photography in New Orleans, produced by the New Orleans Photo Alliance in partnership with museums, galleries, and alternative venues citywide. The exhibition was the third in a series in which Kolaj Institute is exploring the intersection of Photography & Collage. Artists: Alejandra Spruill (Orange, Massachusetts, USA), Amanda Gardner (Dayboro, Queensland, Australia), Brandon Thomas Brown (Brooklyn, New York, USA), Catharine Bramkamp (Nevada City, California, USA), Claire Hansen (Brooklyn, New York, USA), Dafna Steinberg (Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA), Guylaine Séguin (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), Jan Kather (Elmira Heights, New York, USA), Jennifer Mead (Tucson, Arizona, USA), Lance Rothstein (Clearwater, Florida, USA), Maryam Hosseinnia (Kuwait, Kuwait), Mónica McCumber Avilés (Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico), Naomi White (Los Angeles, California, USA), Ric Kasini Kadour (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA & Montreal, Quebec, Canada), Robert A. Schaefer, Jr. (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA), Spencer Steiner (Brooklyn, New York, USA), and Jim Steg (1922-2001) (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA). READ MORE

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.

AUGUST TO OCTOBER 2024

EXHIBITION: Advanced Wound Healing Techniques: Robbie Morgan

16 August to 6 October 2024 at Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans. Made in the months leading up to the artist’s 40th birthday, “Advanced Wound Healing Techniques” is a collection of collage made with personal photographs that were destroyed in a series of fires that took place when artist Robbie Morgan was 24 years old. In the intervening sixteen years, the artist carted around these photographs, moving them from home to home, storing them, occasionally reflecting on them. The collages speak to trauma, destruction, memory and how, as we age, we make sense of things. The artist wrote, “The collective assemblage allowed me to connect to these memories in a way that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to if I hadn’t made this work.” READ MORE

Image: Audubon Adoption by Robbie Morgan. 16″x12″; photographs on panel; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.

JULY 2024

Photography & Collage Virtual Artist Residency

For four sessions in July 2024, fourteen artists came together with three faculty members in dialogue, to learn from one another, and to make artwork for a series of exhibitions that explored the intersection of collage and photography. Over the course of a month, we asked, What happens when a collagist picks up the camera? What happens when a photographer collages their pictures? Presentations explored collage in theory, artist practice, the ecosystem of art, the state of photography, and the history of photography and collage. Artists shot with their own camera, in whatever process they chose (film & develop or digital & print), and then made collage with the photographs they took. After the residency, artists were invited to submit 3-5 artworks that were included in the “Camera and Collage” exhibition at Kolaj Institute in December as part of PhotoNOLA 2024, an annual celebration of photography in New Orleans. Artists: Amanda Gardner (Dayboro, Queensland, Australia), Antonina Baygusheva (Berlin, Germany), Catharine Bramkamp (Nevada City, California, USA), Claire Hansen (Brooklyn, New York, USA), Frances Carter (Houston, Texas, USA), Guylaine Séguin (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), Jan Kather (Elmira Heights, New York, USA), Jennifer Mead (Tucson, Arizona, USA), Marian Tagliarino (Saint Petersburg, Florida, USA), Maryam Hosseinnia (Kuwait, Kuwait), Mónica McCumber Avilés (Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico), Shawn Solus (Pocatello, Idaho, USA), Spencer Steiner (Brooklyn, New York, USA), and Vasti Stephany Guzman (Baldwin Park, California, USA). READ MORE

JUNE TO AUGUST 2024

EXHIBITION: Where Photography Meets Collage

9 June-20 August 2024 at the New Orleans Photo Alliance Center. Photography and collage have a long history of being in dialogue with one another; however, the intersection of these two mediums is poorly explored. The exhibition “Where Photography Meets Collage” aimed to change that. This is the first of four exhibitions produced in collaboration between the New Orleans Photo Alliance and Kolaj Institute. The exhibition featured artwork submitted through an open call to artists and artwork from the May 2024 Photography & Collage Artist Residency, where photographers and collage artists come together in dialogue, learn from one another, and make artwork for a series of exhibitions that explore the intersection of collage and photography. An opening reception took place during Kolaj Fest New Orleans. READ MORE

Image: THIS SIDE TOWARD SCREEN by Ben DiNino. 7.75″x7.75″x5.25″; cardboard, paper, book board, book cloth, PVA glue, binding thread, PET film, & LED screen; 2024. Courtesy of the artist.

MAY 2024

Photography & Collage Artist Residency

From 13-17 May 2024 at Kolaj Institute in New Orleans, four artists came together with three faculty members in dialogue, to learn from one another, and to make artwork for a series of exhibitions that explored the intersection of collage and photography. Unfolding in two tracks over the course of a week, we asked, What happens when a collagist picks up the camera? What happens when a photographer collages their pictures? Presentations explored collage in theory, artist practice, the ecosystem of art, the state of photography, and the history of photography and collage. Artists shot on film, explored the darkroom, and made collage with the results. Artists played with alternative processes and shot digital images which were printed as collage material. During the residency, artists made artwork that was exhibited at the New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery, 9 June-28 July 2024 at the New Orleans Photo Alliance Center. After the residency, artists were invited to submit 3-5 artworks that were included in an exhibition at Kolaj Institute in December as part of PhotoNOLA 2024, an annual celebration of photography in New Orleans. Artists: Alejandra Spruill (Orange, Massachusetts, USA); Brandon Thomas Brown (Brooklyn, New York, USA); Marcus Fields (East Lansing, Michigan, USA); Roxanne Rudov (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA). Faculty: Dafna Steinberg (Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA); Lance Rothstein (Clearwater, Florida, USA); Ric Kasini Kadour (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA & Montreal, Quebec, Canada). READ MORE