24″x18″; mixed media on paper; 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
SPECIAL EVENT AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2024
Collage & Kiki, New Orleans Edition
Friday, 14 June 2024, 6-8PM
John Thompson Legacy Center
Hosted by Aisha Shillingford, LaVonna Varnado-Brown, and Jennella Young
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, 12-16 June 2024. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.
Collagists Aisha Shillingford, LaVonna Varnado-Brown, and Jennella Young invite the New Orleans community to a Collage & Kiki. “Remember that feeling of making art with the homies just for the pure joy of spending time and being creative together? There were snacks within reach, you got your art materials, some dope tunes playing in the background, and the kiki was so sweet you just didn’t want to leave. Join us for Collage & Kiki, New Orleans Edition, with our fam in town for Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2024. We’ll bring the playlist, the magazines, glue, and scissors. You bring the vibes and the creativity. All are welcome.“ This event is free.
Brooklyn-based Aisha Shillingford is an anti-disciplinary artist, world builder, and experience designer originally from Trinidad & Tobago who uses art, storytelling and immersive experiences to unleash the power of Black radical imagination to shape the future. She hosts a series of Collage and Kiki events in Brooklyn.
New Orleans-based LaVonna Varnado-Brown is a socially-engaged multidisciplinary artist, teacher, and community worker who makes AfroFuturistic collage with odes to history, the Divine Feminine, and floral daydreams abounding. She writes, “AfroFuturism is a cultural aesthetic that explores the intersection of art and history with intention to inspire action in the now by healing beyond trauma.”
Jennella Young is a Brooklyn-based artist and educator who is deeply committed to embedding arts, cultural, and community knowledge into the everyday experiences of the young people she works with. In her art practice, Young primarily focuses on portraiture, creating meditative spaces that bring forgotten stories of Black and Brown women back into existence.
About the John Thompson Legacy Center
The John Thompson Legacy Center (JTLC) was created to bring together those who loved and learned from John Thompson, a leader who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death row. The JTLC is a space to support those most impacted by the criminal punishment system and help them to thrive. Reborn in the wake of Hurricane Ida, the JTLC is a community resource for safety, healing, and justice. Located in the 7th Ward, they support community preparedness, host solar powered generators, a plant medicine apothecary, community education events and art installations. They are also creating archives of the work of John Thompson and others whose legacies and teachings are integral to understanding and building a way forward that is fair and just. The JTLC is a program of Resurrection After Exoneration 2.0, led by John Thompson’s widow, Ms. Laverne. www.growingabolition.com/jtlc
ARTIST BIOS
Jennella Young holds a BA in Psychology from Lehigh University, an MA in Counseling Psychology from New York University, and advanced graduate work in Art History and Library and Information Science at Pratt Institute. Her artistic journey includes work with the Apollo Theater Oral History Project, Guggenheim Museum, and Weeksville Heritage Society. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Instagram @jennebella.
LaVonna Varnado-Brown holds a BA from Southeastern University Louisiana with a focus on Theatre and Liberal Arts, with studies in London and Paris. She has worked as an installation artist, artist advocate, teaching artist, and tutor in and around New Orleans. At Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2023, LaVonna presented her collage workshop, “Uses of the Erotic”, and was a panelist for the symposium, “The Mystical, the Esoteric, & the Magical”. For 2022-2023, she was Artist in Residence at Longue Vue House & Gardens in New Orleans. The artist lives and works in New Orleans.
Originally from Trinidad & Tobago, Aisha Shillingford lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She has been an Artist in Residence within Laundromat Project’s Creative Change Program, a mentor at the New Museum Incubator, and a Project Fellow at New York University’s Tisch Interactive Technology Program. She is the Artistic Director of Intelligent Mischief, a creative studio using art, storytelling and immersive experiences to unleash the power of Black radical imagination to shape the future. www.intelligentmischief.com
Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 12-16 June 2024. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.