15″x11″x6″; scrap steel, driftwood, the artist’s father’s screwdriver. Courtesy of the artist.
SYMPOSIUM AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2025
Transformation in Collage as a Vehicle for Global Interruption
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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, 25-29 June 2025. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.
By collecting, chronicling and reconstructing objects, we create value and perhaps beauty with worthless things. The world is currently filled with unsheltered people, as well as migrants trying to find their way in unwelcoming cities—this work feels particularly poignant. How could this transformative approach be applied to social systems, politics and the environment? How could this change our cities and perhaps our world? During the Symposium at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, Julie Eisenberg Pitman will lead a panel on this topic with John Whitlock, Cheryl Chudyk, Colleen Coleman.
“In a time when so many people are experiencing the harsh effects of late-stage capitalism, art offers a momentary escape and an inner sense of purpose,” wrote John Whitlock. “Collage specifically, can be a symbol of transformation. With subject matter and material all around us, collage is a way of taking the cards we’re dealt and turning them into something new. It’s a way to reframe our surroundings and shape the meaning of our day to day lives.”
Cheryl Chudyk will report on a locative collage residency that took place as part of Collage-O-Rama in Seattle in May 2025. Nine artists explored “the dissemination and documentation of artwork that is thrust into public spaces on topics ranging from language prompts, sexual trauma, collage as a divining tool, the pendulum of rage and joy, shared experiences, politics and more,” wrote Chudyk. The residency took place in Belltown, an area of Seattle with a notable population of unsheltered people.
5″x6.5″; altered flashcard collage and embroidery. Courtesy of the artist.
Colleen Coleman will speak about transformation in collage as both a material and metaphorical practice—one that reclaims discarded fragments to build new worlds and narratives. She wrote, “By applying this approach to social systems, politics, and the environment, we can imagine inclusive, regenerative cities that honor the stories and struggles of marginalized communities, turning rupture into resilience. Through creative reconstruction, we shift perception and lay the groundwork for collective healing and systemic change.”
Julie Eisenberg Pitman (image top) will speak about creation. “As artists, we transport people through our work and ideas. Visually our work is a vehicle for travel, filling up people’s voids. One train of thought leads to the next & the next. Creation—putting all our energy into the making, leads to the next step—and then to break it, and disrupt it and to move to the next piece of art, or idea—all to gain understanding. Our transformative approaches in our work, work as catalysts creating illusions, which can be argued create pivots, collectively. When you sense everybody changing their mind about a thing, and whether we can all agree to change our mind, leads me to the possibility that we can all agree to change our mind about what quality of attention we are paying to the planet and people.”
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Julie Eisenberg Pitman is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She holds a BFA in Design from The University of Michigan. She studied at the Studio Arts College International (SACI) in Florence, Italy. Eisenberg Pitman exhibits both nationally and internationally, including Tokyo Digital Billboards, The Superchief Gallery, New York City; Palazzo Albrizzi, Venice, Italy; Alexandria Museum of Art, Louisiana; The Copeland Gallery, London, Verum Ultimum Art Gallery, Oregon; Sturt Haaga Gallery, California, and has been featured in CherryBombe and Musée Magazine. Her journey with the Arctic Circle Residency is shaping new directions in her work with her photographs of arctic kelp. Learn more at www.julieeisenbergpitman.com and on Instagram @eisenbergpi
John Whitlock is an artist and musician living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Widely recognized for his collage work, his current practice includes charcoal drawing, painting and mixed media works on canvas and paper. Whitlock has been exhibited internationally and featured in various publications such as The New York Times and The Atlantic. He was profiled with a four-page feature in Gestalten’s 2013 Age of Collage: Contemporary Collage in Modern Art (reviewed in Kolaj 7). Learn more at www.johnwhitlock.tv and on Instagram @johndwhitlock.
Cheryl Chudyk is a Canadian artist currently based out of Seattle. She has a background in wedding photography, ballet, jazz, and contemporary dance. She dabbles in painting, comics, and poetry, and, by day, she is a practicing pharmacist. Her collage work appears in the Kolaj Institute’s PoetryXCollage Vols. 1 & 2 and the book Folklore of the Upper Nithsdale, as well as {th ink}, Cults of Life, OLTRE, COOLAGE, transitional MOMENTS, and 6 issues of Cut Me Up Magazine, and she has exhibited her work in the US and Europe. She took part in Kolaj Institute’s Collage Artist Residency Scotland in September 2022 and the initial Poetry & Collage Residency. Her work is part of Kolaj Institute’s Collage Castell project and in Schwitters’ Army Collection of Collage Art in Sanquhar, Scotland. She is the president of The Northwest Collage Society, a member of @thecollageclub on Instagram, and co-curator and co-founder of Sharp Hands Gallery. Learn more on Instagram @stitchpixie.
Born in Darlington, South Carolina, Colleen Coleman lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She holds a BA from Cambridge College in Massachusetts and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been exhibited in museums and university galleries, including the Erie Museum, the Salt Lake City Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Benton Museum at the University of Connecticut. She has participated in prestigious national and international residencies such as the Vermont Studio Center, OxBow, Chautauqua Visual Arts, and the Kolaj Institute (August 2024). Coleman is also the recipient of two Connecticut Commission on the Arts Fellowships in Painting and Sculpture. Her work is held in both private and public collections, including the Thomas Hart Benton Museum at the University of Connecticut, the City of New Haven Public Art Collection, and the Mattatuck Museum. Learn more at www.colleencolemanstudio.com.
Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 25-29 June 2025. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.