Collage as Street Art Residency – New Orleans 2024
9-16 June 2024, New Orleans
A week-long, in-person residency that coincides with Kolaj Fest New Orleans (12-16 June 2024), during which artists will explore the city, learn about the history and materials of street art, and make artwork for public display that Kolaj Fest attendees and New Orleanians will be able to view.
Virtual Sessions: Monday, 20 May 2024, 4-6PM EST and Wednesday, 22 May 2024, 4-6PM EST
In Person: 5PM on Sunday, 9 June to Noon on Sunday, 16 June 2024
Early Deadline to Apply: 31 March 2024. The Final Deadline (if space is available) is 28 April 2024. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis until space is filled. Artists are encouraged to apply well before the deadline.
In this week-long, project-driven collage residency, artists will delve into the history, methods, and major artists of the “street art” movement with a particular emphasis on collage. Participants will endeavor to put some of those methods into practice, taking their collage art out into the streets. Documenting the entire process will be integral to the project, as the resulting work will be published in a Kolaj Street Krewe zine to be announced at a later date.
This residency is an extension of the ongoing Kolaj Street Krewe project. Kolaj Street Krewe, an informal group of artists interested in this subject, explores the role of collage in street art as a practice and phenomenon. The group formed out of a chance meeting of FANCLUB13, Rosie Schinners, and Laurie O’Brien at Kolaj Fest New Orleans in 2018. Realizing the three of them shared an interest in collage street art, they decided to form a group and pitch a project at Kolaj Fest New Orleans in 2019. During COVID-19, the Krewe led a forum as part of Kolaj LIVE Online which resulted in a Call to Artists. In July 2021, fourteen artists participated in the virtual Collage as Street Art Residency. This history is documented in the book, Wallflowers: Collage as Street Art. Today, the project manifests as residencies, presentations, articles, and publications. An in-person residency took place alongside Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2023 and Kolaj Institute is offering this opportunity again during Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2024.
Leading the residency is Lance Rothstein, aka FANCLUB 13, who has been creating street art for over 20 years in over 25 US cities and 31 European cities. Rothstein writes, “I consider my work to be a bit like archaeology, collecting the discarded items from people’s everyday lives and rearranging them in new relationships. Then I usually send them back out to the streets in this new form, with a new purpose. I look forward to continuing my personal scavenger hunt, finding little trashy treasures and combining them into intricate relationships for people to come across on the streets.”
Artists will arrive in New Orleans on the Sunday before Kolaj Fest begins and will spend those days coming together to learn about the work and methods of several established artists and discuss new techniques and strategies, with topics such as Placement, Materials, Visibility, Message, and Legality. Each day, we will challenge participants to get their work out onto the streets, document the process, and share it with the group for discussion and critique. There will be sanctioned walls where artists will have permission to put up their work and during Kolaj Fest attendees will be encouraged to seek them out as they tour the city. Once Kolaj Fest starts, the artists in this residency will be let loose from the formal sessions and encouraged to participate in Kolaj Fest programming while also keeping an eye out for street art opportunities. As Kolaj Fest comes to an end, the residency will meet once more to debrief and digest the experience together.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
Collage as Street Art Residency: New Orleans is an in-person residency in New Orleans, Louisiana USA centered on collage artists who want to develop their artist practice around street art. Residencies are intended for self-motivated artists, regardless of the stage in their career, who want to develop their practice by exploring a topic or working method and collaborating with others to produce a final product and who want to develop a practice of working within the context of street art to create and present art that embeds itself in non-traditional spaces.
Residencies are open to any artist over the age of 21 from anywhere in the world. We look for artists who have a developed sense of practice (even if it is an emerging one) and those who have a strong connection to a community.
COST
The cost of the residency is $750 USD. Registration to Kolaj Fest New Orleans is included in the cost. Artists are responsible for their own travel to and accommodations in New Orleans. No artist will be turned away for lack of funds and the organizers will work with artists to build a financial aid package.
HOW TO APPLY
Submit your application HERE.
RESIDENCY LOGISTICS
The Residency will have two Virtual Sessions. “Introductions & Orientation” on Monday, 20 May 2024, 4-6PM EST, and “Documenting Street Art” on Wednesday, 22 May 2024, 4-6PM EST.
Artists will arrive on Sunday and meet briefly at 5PM to settle into the space. Meetings will then take place during the day Monday-Wednesday. Kolaj Fest New Orleans begins on Wednesday evening and continues until Sunday morning. Artists in the residency will have a final meeting on Sunday to review the work that was made during the week and discuss how to take what they learned back to their own communities.
Kolaj Institute stocks general collage-making materials such as cutting mats, scissors, a variety of glues, substrates, and books and magazines. If an artist wishes to use specific materials they may be shipped in advance to the Kolaj Institute Studio & Gallery.
APPLICATION PROCESS
The submission process asks applicants for:
• Contact information
• Artist or Writer Bio (50-250 words)
• Statement of Artist or Writer Practice (50-300 words)
• 5-7 images of artwork
• Statement of expectations
• Asks questions about your work and needs
QUESTIONS
If you have questions, send an email.
Faculty
FANCLUB13
FANCLUB 13 is the street art collage persona of Lance Rothstein. He 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. “I began leaving my little collage pieces everywhere I traveled, mostly working with objects found on the streets of the cities I visited, and making the artworks late at night in my hotel room before posting them up on the street the following day.” FANCLUB13 prefers the dubious methods of posting street art and mail art but has also had some more traditional exhibitions. His artwork has been shown in many local Belgian and Florida galleries, but also in Brooklyn, Detroit, Chicago, Pasadena, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, New Orleans, London, and Paris. His work has been featured in Kolaj Magazine, Be a Pal magazine, Unfamiliar Vegetables, 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 at MERZ Gallery in Sanquhar, Scotland, and the Postcards for Democracy traveling collection by Mark Mothersbaugh and Beatie Wolf, opening first at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery in Fort Myers, Florida.
Christopher Kurts
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, illustrated and interpreted by contemporary collage artists. His own work recently appeared in the exhibition, “Empty Columns are a Place to Dream” which debuted in August 2021 during the 53rd Annual Birr Vintage Week & Arts Festival in Birr, County Offaly, Ireland. In January 2022, Kolaj Institute published a book about the project and the exhibition traveled to the Knoxville Museum of Art in Knoxville, Tennessee. 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 “Unfamiliar Vegetables”, a group exhibition for Kolaj Fest New Orleans in July 2019, which was later published as a book.
PARTNERS
About Kolaj Institute
The mission of Kolaj Institute is to support artists, curators, and writers who seek to study, document, & disseminate ideas that deepen our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century movement. We operate a number of initiatives meant to bring together community, investigate critical issues, and raise collage’s standing in the art world. www.kolajinstitute.org