12″x12″; collage on vinyl record sleeve; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Trash as Material
at Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
25 October-6 December 2025
Reception: 8 November 2025, 6-8PM
during Second Saturday in the Bywater Artwalk
You can call it refuse or detritus or reclaimed materials or recycling or you can call it what it is, Trash. In collage, materials are never neutral. From how they are sourced to how they are used, the material a collage is made of shapes the story and experience of the artwork. The exhibition “Trash as Material” considers trash as both a material and an idea and presents artwork that invites us to interrogate our relationship and thinking about trash.
Inspired by plastic bags and other litter caught in the roadside bramble in the English countryside, Jodie House (Dorset, England, United Kingdom) uses locative collage to consider “the complicated relationship humans have with the world they use.” Bill Gaylord (Seattle, Washington, USA) and Lance Rothstein (Clearwater, Florida, USA) each collect litter and trash as an investigation of place and use that material to express ideas about that place. An installation by Ric Kasini Kadour (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA & Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a material study on how plastic bags may be used as material for art. On view from Kolaj Institute’s art collection is a locative collage photograph of abandoned migrant clothing by Bredt Bredthauer (Los Angeles, California, USA), taken during the artist’s months-long walking journey through the Texas borderlands in the late 2010s.
20″x33″; found trash on discarded coffee boxes; 2022-2024. Courtesy of the artist.
Using material exclusively from The Green Project, Berenguer Becat (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA) makes miniature versions of local bars. Since 1994, The Green Project organization has promoted “a culture of creative reuse by diverting usable materials from landfills and cultivating a respect for their value.” They operate a salvage store and paint recycling program in the Bywater. They wrote, “By selling used and teaching about reuse, we are able to provide affordable materials to the community, host low-cost and free workshops, keep usable goods out of the landfill and nearby waterways, preserve historic architectural pieces and educate residents about environmental issues.”
dimensions variable (25 pieces); cardboard from recycle bin at the New Orleans Healing Center and bins on the streets of New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
Also on view is artwork made by participants in the residency, Collage The Planet: Trash as Material. In this five-day, in-person residency, collage artists explored Trash as a cultural idea and developed methods for making art and telling stories with it. From a family of “pickers”, Denise Clemen (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) uses the material she found exploring the streets of New Orleans in a modern retelling of Greek mythology. Johanna Merfeld (Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA) reclaimed corrugated cardboard from the New Orleans Healing Center and reworked it into topography. Lauren Crasco (San Francisco, California, USA) processed oyster shells collected from The Salted Pearl at the St. Roch Market and used them in a landscape. Lindsay M Walker (Houston, Texas, USA) made trash assemblages in every color of the rainbow to speak about the current political environment queer people are living in. Taeesha Muhammad (Brooklyn, New York, USA) harvested denim pockets from discarded blue jeans to present a counter-narrative that acknowledges the significant contributions of enslaved people to agriculture and fashion history. With Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone episode, “The Obsolete Man”, in mind, Maddy Sneep (Austin, Texas, USA) made assemblage and small sculptures that asks us to care differently about e-waste.
“In each artwork, something that was undesirable, unwanted is presented as an object of culture, an opportunity for stories and conversation,” said exhibition curator and Kolaj Institute director Ric Kasini Kadour. “The artists are not lecturing us about consumerism or recycling or our own waste-making. They are asking us to think deeply about the Trash in our lives, how it came to be, and what happens after we discard it. There is something magical about taking a piece of trash and turning it into a thing of beauty or intrigue. Perhaps, if we can learn to perform that magic with Trash, then we can perform it with other things in our world as well.”
ABOUT KOLAJ INSTITUTE GALLERY
The mission of Kolaj Institute is to support artists, curators, and writers who seek to study, document, and 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.
Kolaj Institute’s Gallery in New Orleans presents exhibitions and connects Kolaj Institute and the artists we work with to the vibrant St. Claude Arts District. We produce 8-10 exhibitions a year and participate in Second Saturday, the neighborhood’s monthly art walk, putting the collage art, books and exhibitions in front of New Orleanians and visitors. The Gallery is located at 2374 Saint Claude Avenue, Suite 230, at the corner with St. Roch Avenue above the Peach Cobbler Factory. The Gallery is open Thursday-Saturday, Noon-6PM or by appointment.
KOLAJ INSTITUTE’S POLITICS IN COLLAGE PROJECT
Collage as a political art form has a particular relevance to today as well as a strong historical context. From its roots in the European anti-fascist and Russian revolutionary movements in the early 20th century to its expressions during the U.S. Civil Rights era to its current manifestations in the fight for social justice in South America, collage is used by artists around the world as an impetus for social and political change. Kolaj Magazine has reported on how collage was used to visualize the 2019-2021 Estallido Social in Chile which incidentally birthed a new collage community. In Fall 2021, Kolaj Institute organized a series of residencies in which artists explored the intersection of politics and collage. Led by G.E. Vogt, the residencies produced a collection of artworks that debuted at Kolaj Fest New Orleans in 2022 as an exhibition at The Domino. In July 2022, Kolaj Institute released Politics in Collage, a book of artwork, and an Online Exhibition. In November 2022, a third residency took place which resulted in a second book, Collage Saves The World. In April 2024, the artist residency and exhibition “Collage the Planet: Environmentalism in Art” took place at Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans. A fifth artist residency in October 2025, Collage the Planet: Trash as Material, resulted in the exhibition, “Trash as Material”, at Kolaj Institute Gallery.