Poetry and Collage Residency December 2024

RESIDENCY UPDATE

Poetry & Collage Residency December 2025

A virtual/online residency
3 December 2024-2 January 2025

About the Residency

In January 2022, Kolaj Institute issued a call to artists for a Poetry & Collage Residency and received so many excellent responses that we organized a series of three residencies. In the residencies, we challenged artists to move beyond taxonomical debates. Ric Kasini Kadour said, “What is a poem? We do not need to have a singular answer to that question. Individually we must each answer that question for ourselves. In practice, every poem we make will be an example of what a poem is. In considering other people’s work, we should ask ourselves, How is this a poem?” During the residencies, artists interrogated each other’s artwork, collaborated, and shared ideas. And at the end of it, they sent us more page spreads than could fit into a single book. Impressed and moved by the volume and quality of cultural output and a deep belief that this practice, however you want to describe it, at the intersection of collage and poetry deserves a platform, we decided to create a new journal dedicated to it. 

PoetryXCollage is a printed journal of artwork and writing that operates at the intersection of poetry and collage. We are interested in found poetry, blackout poetry, collage poems, haikus, centos, response collages, response poems, word scrambles, concrete poetry, scatter collage poems, and other poems and artwork that inhabit this world.

After releasing several volumes of the journal and opening an ongoing call for submissions, we are returning to this residency program as a way to help artists develop their ideas, explore the intersection of collage and poetry, collaborate and form community, and prepare submissions for the journal. This project-driven residency is open to artists and poets.

Kolaj Institute Coordinator Christopher Kurts leads the residency and guides artists in collaborative activities, research and discussion, and understanding the technical needs of design and layout necessary to submit page spreads to PoetryXCollage. Ric Kasini Kadour will talk about artist practice, the book as a place for collage, and how Kolaj Institute works to diffuse collage and poetry. Rod T. Boyer creates art and poetry under the moniker our thomas, exploring themes of redemption, mystery, and transformation. In Kolaj #32, his article, “Mind the Gap,” explored how collage and haiku share similar mechanisms of juxtaposition and disjunction. He will speak to these themes during the residency.

In four virtual meetings over the course of the month and through ongoing, online discussion, artists will leave the residency with a deeper understanding of the intersection of collage and poetry. Individual participants will each be invited to create and submit 3-5 page spreads to the PoetryXCollage Journal. 

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PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Ashley-Devon Williamston

Ashley-Devon Williamston is a storyteller whose praxes are influenced by their status as a queer Black American and fascination with broader humanity. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, they spent their childhood in Atlanta, Georgia and have since resided in several other states. After completing an MA in Sociocultural Anthropology, they sought alternative ways to explore the human condition and began honing their poetic practice, elevating it from longstanding hobby to skilled craft. They currently deploy experimental forms of concrete poetry and image-based collage as mediums for communicating narratives about people and society. The artist holds an MFA from The Writer’s Foundry and their work appears in Ginger Magazine, Dinner Bell Magazine, warning lines, The Rumpus, Transforming Anthropology, The Infrarreelista Review, and beyond.

Ayse Derin Ergenc

In 2022, Ayse Derin Ergenc co-founded the Istanbul Collage Lab (ICL) with another artist, creating a collective that brought together numerous collage artists face-to-face and offered many people the opportunity to experience collage. In 2023, she opened her own collage studio, where she hosts collage workshops. She has also organized exhibitions in Istanbul and her work was featured in 2023 in “Anaphylaxis” in Paris. Her collage was featured on the poster for Erinç Durlanık’s film When the Shift Ends, and her collaborations with musicians has resulted in collages displayed as cover art on music platforms.

Cathleen Cramer

Cathleen Cramer is an artist, teacher, and mother based in Chicago, Illinois. After completing her undergraduate degree in Fine Art at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, she went on to earn a Masters in Teaching from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has taught everything from art history to printmaking to textiles to painting at Chicago Public Schools and Marwen, a non-profit art school in Chicago’s gallery district. She works in a variety of media to create highly personal work that investigates her role as a caregiver as well as her evolving spirituality.

Heather Wishik

Heather Wishik is a Jewish lesbian printmaker, collage artist and poet living with her spouse, Susan, in Woodstock, Vermont. She has studied poetry at Goddard College with Ellen Bryant Voigt and Heather McHue, and through a variety of organizations including The Ruth Stone House, Yetzirah and Blue Stoop. Her study of printmaking includes: white line printmaking workshops with Kathi Smith at the Provincetown Art Association; printmaking workshops with Michael David and Michael Mazur; as well as many years of independent printmaking in the print studio at the Fine Arts Work Center. Her early childhood memoir, titled The Family Star, in the form of poellages (collage and poetry combined) is currently on display in her one-woman show at the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock, VT and will be on display in January at the Kellogg Hubbard Library in Montpelier, VT.

Keren Taylor

Keren Taylor is an artist, songwriter and the founder/director of WriteGirl, an international creative writing and mentoring organization for teen girls and gender-expansive youth. In 2013, WriteGirl received the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the highest national honor awarded to exemplary after-school programs. Keren is the editor of 38 awardwinning anthologies of youth writing, and in 2020, she received the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award, “spotlighting efforts to bring books, publishing and storytelling into the future.” Working primarily in collage and assemblage, Taylor has studied mixed media composition for over two decades with private teachers, and also at The Arts Students League in New York and The Art Center in Pasadena. Taylor’s artwork has been exhibited in several galleries in Los Angeles and is the featured cover art for several books. She lives in Blaine, Washington, where she makes art and jewelry, writes poetry, oversees WriteGirl programs, and bakes exotic desserts. Taylor holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from the University of British Columbia, a Piano Performance Degree from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, and a Diploma from the American Music and Dramatic Academy, New York.

Laura Dolp

Laura Dolp is a writer, printmaker, and the founder of Stenen Press. Dolp is the author of several books, including Book of Hours (2021), which explores the mythology of place. A forthcoming book, Sofia (2025), takes the form of a dream-atlas that weaves new poetry and illustrations drawn from two print series. Dolp is a working member of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in New York City and KKV Grafik, Konstnärernas Kollektiva Grafikverkstad in Malmö, Sweden. She has been a resident artist at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica di Venezia. Dolp grew up on the west coast of the United States, in the fertile valleys of the Columbia River watershed. Now she lives and works in New York City on the Hudson River.

Maggie Cramer

Maggie Cramer is a teacher, mother, and writer living in Evanston, Illinois. She holds a BA in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MS in Teaching from Northwestern University. Her work has appeared in East on Central, the Women Made Gallery, and the forthcoming December issue of Mom Egg Review. She was granted the Hollyhock Teaching Fellowship from Stanford University in 2019.

Megan J. Arlett

Megan J. Arlett was born in the United Kingdom, grew up in Spain, and now lives in New Mexico, where she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Eastern New Mexico University. The recipient of two Academy of American Poets prizes and the phoebe nonfiction prize, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2019, Best New British and Irish Poets, Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, The Sun, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Her first book, The Garden Party, is forthcoming with Northwestern University Press.

Mohosin Kabir

Bangladeshi visual artist Mohosin Kabir explores diverse mediums such as Cyanotype Print, Drawing and Painting, and Photography. He focuses on research-based works and participating in international exhibitions. He holds a BFA and an MFA from the University of Dhaka. At university, he was the president of Dhaka University Photographic Society (DUPS). He is currently a member of Britto Arts Trust. His works have been shown globally, including at Documenta Fifteen in Kassel, Germany; Vantage Point 10 by the Sharjah Art Foundation, and in the USA, France, Italy, Greece, Azerbaijan, Romania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Nepal and India. Kabir’s ongoing projects include “The Last Weave”, “River Delta” and the upcoming book, Visual Ethnography, supported by UNESCO.

Talon Springer

Talon Springer (she/her) is a queer Korean transracial, transnational adoptee having newly started her artistic journey with found poetry through collage. She is currently working on a series of framed collages that represent the issues adoptees wrestle with and the uphill struggle against the industrial adoption complex when wanting to find their birth records. In her previous life, she was an accountant.

Zülal Çizmeci

Turkish artist Zülal Çizmeci graduated from Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Traditional Turkish Arts, Department of Illumination in 2014. In 2022, she completed the master’s program of the same school and department. In 2024, she continues her education in the master’s program at the Art and Design department of the same school. She has contributed her works to printed publications such as the Kolaj Magazine World Collage Day 2024 Special Edition, Paris Collage Collective, Collé Magazine, Subuart Magazine, Oltre Collage Paper Fanzine, and Vogue Turkey. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions including the Czech Republic 20th Jazz Dance Collage Festival, Arton Gallery, Büyükdere35 Art Gallery, and Base’21. She continues her works in her own studio.

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FACULTY

Christopher Kurts is a storyteller and artist in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the Coordinator for Kolaj Institute, where he has organized artist labs, residencies, workshops, and forums which have often led to exhibitions and publications. In this role, Kurts acted as the Art Director for Kolaj Institute’s Oh, Money! Money! by Eleanor H. Porter; The Awakening by Kate Chopin; Frankenstein by Mary Shelly; and the forthcoming Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf, each illustrated and interpreted by contemporary collage artists. Kurts is also the co-founder and lead organizer for the Mystic Krewe of Scissors and Glue, a group of creatives in New Orleans who meet monthly to collage, converse, and foster community. Along with the Krewe, Kurts helped organize the inaugural Paper Parade in January 2024, a Mardi Gras walking parade devoted to collage. His work recently appeared in PoetryXCollage Volume 6 and in the exhibition, “Sewage & Water Board Billing Issues: Collage by New Orleans Artists” which debuted in June 2024 during the Kolaj Fest in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. christopherkurts.com

Ric Kasini Kadour, a 2021 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Fellow, is a writer, artist, publisher, and cultural worker. Working with the Vermont Arts Council, Kadour curated four exhibits: “Connection: The Art of Coming Together” (2017) and Vermont Artists to Watch 2018, 2019 and 2020. In 2017, he curated “The Art of Winter” at S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Burlington, Vermont. In 2018, Kadour curated “Revolutionary Paths: Critical Issues in Collage” at Antenna Gallery in New Orleans, which bought together collage artists whose work represents the potential for deeper inquiry and further curatorial exploration of the medium; followed in 2019 by “Cultural Deconstructions: Critical Issues in Collage” at LeMieux Galleries in New Orleans, which furthered the conversation; and “Amuse Bouche”, also at LeMieux Galleries in 2023 and 2024. Since 2018, he has produced Kolaj Fest New Orleans, a multi-day festival & symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society. As Curator of Contemporary Art at Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh, Vermont in 2019 and 2020, he curated three exhibitions, “Rokeby Through the Lens” (May 19-June 16, 2019), “Structures” (August 24-October 27, 2019), and “Mending Fences: New Works by Carol MacDonald” (July 12-October 25, 2020). He also curated “Contemporary American Regionalism: Vermont Perspectives” (August 17-October 20, 2019); “Where the Sun Casts No Shadow: Postcards from the Creative Crossroads of Quito, Ecuador” (November 1-30, 2019); and “Many Americas” (August 20-November 27, 2022) in the Wilson Museum & Galleries at the Southern Vermont Arts Center. “The Money $how”, co-curated with Frank Juarez, was presented at the AIR Space Gallery at Saint Kate-The Arts Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (April 10-September 12, 2021). For Birr Vintage Week & Arts Festival in Birr, County Offaly, Ireland (August 13-20, 2021), he curated “Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream”, which traveled to the Knoxville Museum of Art in January-February 2022. At 516 ARTS in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Kadour co-curated with Alicia Inez Guzmàn two exhibitions: “Many Worlds Are Born” (February 19-May 14, 2022) and “Technologies of the Spirit” (June 11-September 3, 2022). In 2023 at the Knoxville Museum of Art, Kadour curated “Where the Sun Casts No Shadow: Postcards from the Creative Crossroads of Quito, Ecuador” (January 9-February 16, 2023) and “Mythical Landscape: Secrets of the Vale” (March 17-May 28, 2023). In September 2023, he curated “Word of Mouth: Folklore, Community and Collage” at A’ the Airts in Sanquhar, Scotland. His first short film, The Covenant of Schwitters’ Army, debuted at Collage on Screen during Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2023. His second, Joy Is Paper, debuted at Collage on Screen during Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2024.

At the Kolaj Institute Gallery, Kadour curated “Kolaj Institute Grand Opening Exhibition” (March 9-April 14, 2024); “Collage the Planet: Environmentalism in Art” (April 19-May 26, 2024); “Magic in the Modern World” (June 1-August 11, 2024); “Advanced Wound Healing Techniques: Collage by Robbie Morgan” (August 16-October 6, 2024); “Temporal Geolocation: How Place & History Inform Identity in Collage” (October 11-November 24, 2024; and “Camera & Collage” (November 29, 2024-January 25, 2025).

Kadour is the editor and publisher of Kolaj Magazine. He has written for a number of galleries and his writing has appeared in Hyperallergic, OEI, Vermont Magazine, Seven Days, Seattle Weekly, Art New England (where he was the former Vermont editor) and many others. Kadour maintains an active art practice and his photography, collage, and sculpture have been exhibited in and are part of private collections in Australia, Europe and North America. In January-February 2020, he was artist-in-residence at MERZ Gallery in Sanquhar, Scotland. He holds a BA in Comparative Religion from the University of Vermont. Kadour splits his time between Montreal and New Orleans. www.rickasinikadour.com

Rod T. Boyer creates art and poetry as our thomas, exploring themes of redemption, mystery, and transformation.  Like the rest of the world, he’s trying to make sense of the endless and overwhelming stream of flotsam (physical and metaphoric) that accompanies his life. His collage work has been exhibited in his local area and his haiku have recently appeared in the journals Modern Haiku, Acorn, is/let, Sonic Boom, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Trash Panda and Failed Haiku among others. He was named a finalist in the first annual Trailblazer Contest and has work in the 2021 The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku. He can be found wandering the streets in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA and, online, at ourthomasart.com and on Instagram.