36″x24″; collage printed with dye sublimation on aluminum; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
SYMPOSIUM AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2026
Divas, Blues, & Memories
EVENT WEBSITE | REGISTER
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.
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. The collage references two of McCall’s earlier series.
36″x24″; collage printed with dye sublimation on aluminum; 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
“Diva Worship” features portraits of both famous and underrepresented divas–of all gender identities–whose music inspired, empowered, and captivated McCall, particularly during his coming-of-age in the 1970s LGBTQ+ community. Throughout history and within various cultures, divas have been “worshipped” or admired for their talent, personality, and achievements, especially by marginalized communities who identify with the diva’s own struggles against systemic prejudice and discrimination. Thus, McCall’s collages laud these divas whose music and personas reflect the ability to challenge, and sometimes even triumph over, oppressive forces, and offer a space for escapism, reflection, and aspiration.
The collages in McCall’s “REWIND: MEMORIES ON REPEAT” series spotlight music’s ability to forge bonds and serve as a “soundtrack” for our lives, conjuring memories. The collages feature some of McCall’s deceased friends from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, from Philadelphia to New York, during the LGBTQ+ rights movement, the height of disco music, and the AIDS crisis. Within these friendships, music was a galvanizing force, whether they attended concerts, partied at the disco, shared playlists, impersonated their favorite divas, or pursued their own musical dreams of stardom. Thus, McCall invites viewers to celebrate music as a uniting force and keeper of memories.
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.
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
New York, New York, USA. Beau McCall, whom American Craft Magazine proclaimed “The Button Man”, creates visual and wearable art by hand-sewing clothing buttons onto mostly upcycled fabrics, materials, and objects. His artworks are held in the permanent collection of numerous public institutions including the Getty Research Institute; Museum of Arts and Design; The Museum at FIT; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Victoria and Albert Museum; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 2024, McCall debuted his first-ever retrospective and exhibition catalog titled, “Beau McCall: Buttons On!” at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, and is now on a nationwide tour. Learn more at www.beaumccall.com and on Instagram @beau_mccall.
New York, New York, USA. Souleo has been hailed as an “Icon of Harlem” (Ruth Millington, art historian and author of Muse) and “Harlem’s Heart & Soul” (New York Daily News). An acclaimed creative, curator, writer, impresario, consultant, and muse he seamlessly merges the worlds of visual art, fashion, literature, media, and the performing arts to document and amplify the stories of the emerging and underrepresented via exhibitions, events, and writing. Souleo has collaborated with noteworthy institutions and brands, including the New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Brooklyn Public Library/Center for Brooklyn History, Museum of Arts and Design, Columbia University, Barnard College, Newark Museum of Art, Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, Nordstrom, and AARP. Souleo’s work has been widely covered in outlets including the Associated Press, The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine/The Cut, ESSENCE, EBONY, and PBS. Learn more www.souleouniverse.com and on Instagram @souleouniverse.