SYMPOSIUM AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2026
Art on the Body: Fashion & Collage
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Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 10-14 June 2026. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.
Symposium sessions at Kolaj Fest New Orleans bring together a group of artists who speak about a central theme. Artists, writers, academics, and curators present slideshows which are followed by a Question & Answer period.
Fashion and collage seem to dance around each other. Visual artists draw from fashion magazines and as the American Academy of Fashion Design noted, “Designers have used fashion collages for years, and the technique can have a greater visual impact than a simple photograph or drawing.” Then a whole category of wearable art enters the room with mixed materials, fragmented embellishment, and juxtaposed design languages. In this panel, we will hear from three artists who are each dancing around fashion and collage.
diptych: 60″x48″x48″; multi-media; 2024. Courtesy of the artist.
A former art gallery owner and architect, Seattle, Washington artist and curator Bill Gaylord makes hand drawings, two and three dimensional collage, wearable art, painting, printmaking, photography as well as body art design and wearable art fashion creations often using repurposed cultural detritus, plastic, paper, wood and metal found objects in a maximalist fashion. On this panel, Gaylord will present “Collage and the Body: Artwear.” He wrote, “Humans have adorned their bodies using art for millennia whether it be fabricated garments, textiles, papyrus accessories, jewelry, feathers as well as found and recycled materials. Adorning the body in a three-dimensional moving canvas for artful expression has many origins of human needs: protection, social identity, display of status, ritual and spirituality, politics and power, and human attraction, beauty and sexuality. Many contemporary artists collage a myriad of materials and techniques creating wearable art or artwear. The scope of the talk will include a variety of collaging techniques using recycled, repurposed, garbage, and new materials and technologies in contemporary fashion. ‘Trashion’, ‘Haute Trash’, ‘Circular Design’, ‘Bio-Design’, ‘Slow Fashion’ and ‘Haute Couture’ are some of the current movements that will be explored, focusing on the hand-made collaging of two- and three-dimensional in artwear where the body and movement create a new movement and direction in collage.”
8″x6″; collage and acrylic on paper; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
Based in Lafayette, Louisiana, New Orleans-born artist and educator Michael Eble is deeply engaged with both process and technique, and with the study of collage that is rigorously developed both conceptually and formally. Recently, Eble inherited a collection of vintage ties, sparking a deeper investigation into traditional men’s fashion. This prompted him to consider the act of dressing as a form of collage, where the arrangement of ties, dress shirts, and jackets mirrors the compositional relationships found in his artwork. This line of inquiry has led him to explore the repurposing of traditional garments and fabrics as both substrate and material for collage. Alongside this studio work, he is researching menswear conventions, including the history of the necktie and stylistic lineages connecting Ivy, Prep, Trad, Neo-Prep, Heritage, and Americana dress. On this panel, Eble will share insights from this ongoing research and discuss how these ideas are informing new directions in his studio practice.
On the panel, Boston, Massachusetts artist Nikola Janevski will speak about his new collaborative, fashion collage series, “New Orleans-Magic and Protection,” that was developed with New Orleans artists during a December 2025 Solo Residency at the Kolaj Institute. The Mississippi River flows through a blue-themed jacket made with Cindy Green. Michael Pajon worked with Janevski on a pair of jackets about swamp magic. Cowrie shells and bone beads speak to ritual and Black female power in Janevski’s collaborations with LaVonna Varnado Brown. The jacket made with Christopher Kurts and Chachi Lewis from the Mystic Krewe of Scissors and Glue focused on New Orleans street culture. Janevski sourced fabrics at ricRACK, a sewing and textile recycling non-profit in the French Quarter. “Materials are the conduit of the message,” wrote Janevski. “I often learn techniques and experiment with new materials when I see them as appropriate to convey my artistic vision. Sewing, textiles, beading, embroidery, printmaking, collage, burning, and appliqué are some of the techniques I have used.”
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Lafayette, Louisiana, USA. Michael Eble holds a BFA in painting from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and an MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Mississippi. Eble is the Assistant Dean for the College of the Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Before his return to Louisiana, he served as Associate Professor of Studio Art and Curator of the Edward J. & Helen Jean Morrison Gallery at the University of Minnesota, Morris. His works have been shown in solo and group shows across the US, including solo shows at the Hilliard Art Museum and the Acadiana Center for the Arts, and he is the recipient of many grants and awards. He is represented by Cole Pratt Gallery in New Orleans, which presented a solo show of his work in May 2026. He was a Kolaj Institute Solo Resident in May-June 2025 and was a panelist at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2025. Originally from New Orleans, he now lives and works in Lafayette, Louisiana. Learn more at www.michaeleble.com and on Instagram @michaelebleartist.
Seattle, Washington, USA, Bill Gaylord, FAIA, is an artist, art curator and former art gallery owner, and an architect. He holds degrees in Art and Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2012, he was inducted as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, in the category “Service to Society”. He has exhibited his artwear, collage-based art and multi-media installations extensively and provides art curation for private developers and individuals on the West Coast. He was a Kolaj Institute Solo Resident in June 2025 and has been artist-in-residence at the School of Visual Arts and Pratt Oaxaca, among others. His works were included in Kolaj Institute’s “Trash as Material” exhibition, October-December 2025. A passionate advocate for the Art as Medicine movement, Gaylord serves on the Path with Art board in Seattle and is an Advisory Board Member for the Henry Gallery at the University of Washington. Learn more at www.thisisbonfire.com and on Instagram @thisisbonfire.
Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Originally from North Macedonia, Nikola Janevski specializes in collage, textile printmaking, and fashion design. The large-scale collage series “Memento Mori” garnered critical acclaim, featured in exhibitions including the National Collage Society Juried Exhibition and the Northville Art Gallery in Michigan. Janevski’s fashion work was showcased and published at the Costume Society of America annual conferences and the International Textile and Apparel Association annual conference. His Blue Nights–The Complexity of Grief earned multiple accolades, including Best of Show at West Virginia University’s end-of-year fashion event and Best Presentation at a graduate-level creative design conference. He presented a collage fashion show at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2025 and he was a Kolaj Institute Solo Resident in December 2025-January 2026. Learn more at www.nikolajanevski.art and on Instagram @nikola_janevski.