Curiosity, Wonder, Joy, & Portals at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2025

SYMPOSIUM AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2025

Curiosity, Wonder, Joy, & Portals

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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.

With its roots and history in the Surreal, collage is a well-built path to exercise curiosity. What happens if I put these two things together? Collage’s ability to bridge time and geography makes it a vehicle to explore new realms. During the Symposium at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, we will hear from Anthony D Kelly, Breasia Hayes, Savannah Green, and C. Joi Sanchez, each who are engaged in projects that explore wonder and joy and how life experiences take one down creative paths.

Anthony D Kelly (image top) is an artist, writer, and integrative psychotherapist from Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland. “At the beating heart of my art practice are both wonder and play. Collage is a way for me to connect with myself, my community and the world around me,” wrote the artist. “I often hold a concept, word or idea in mind until an image coalesces and presents itself internally. I then sit and begin to sift through materials both digital and analogue for something that resonates.” Kelly will present his project, “Lexicon of Wonder”. He wrote, “Wonder and Awe are complex emotions arising in response to experiences of profound beauty, connection, natural phenomena, or through bearing witness to the incredible capacities, courage or talents of other human beings. They can also arise at times of great personal crisis or fear such as witnessing the raw power of nature at a time of natural disaster.” Kelly will speak about project origins, his ongoing research into the emotional states of wonder and awe, the role poetry plays in the project, and his plans for an exhibition and publication.

“My art is an intuitive act of storytelling, where collage and poetry merge to honor emotion, brown identity, and the cosmic vastness of existence. Through celestial imagery, archival fragments, and layered textures, I reconstruct narratives of resilience, transformation, and divinity. At its core, my work is a love letter to creation itself—a reminder that we are not just made to exist, but to co-create,” wrote Kansas City, Missouri artist and poet Breasia Hayes. Two years ago, during her second pregnancy, Hayes turned to collage as a creative outlet and quickly fell in love with the medium. “Post pregnancy, I was in a place of uncertainty. My pregnancy brought me so much creative clarity and every moment I was able to go into that creative place within myself, something profound came out on the other side,” wrote Hayes. “After my birth, I found myself in a new place in my mind- a blissful place where I could completely trust that everything I am creating is in collaboration with The Creator.

“Wonder is a feeling we are deeply deprived of in the modern age unless we really pay attention. Curiosity and magic are at the heart of my creative realm.” wrote Savannah Green. The Palisades, New York artist is currently working on a series of collages that combine tarot cards, her unique visual language, and the compositional structure of stained glass. She wrote of her “Portal” series, “I am a PORTAL, You are a PORTAL, Life is a PORTAL, Death is a PORTAL. PORTALS are limitless and liminal, they are dreamscapes; windows into alternate worlds. I am a dreamer fascinated by light and alchemy, life and death–the kinds we can see and the kinds we can only feel. I revel in finding ways to make the opaqueness of collage on wood feel like stained glass, somehow lit from within, even using the Gothic arch to evoke a cathedral like quality. PORTALS seeks to induce a feeling of reverence, one not belonging to religion but to the earthly experience.” Green will speak about the project’s origins, her process and how it evolved into a project that speaks to grief and “the many layers of life experience.”

Brooklyn-born, Bronx, New York polymath artist, writer, and curator C. Joi Sanchez also goes by the name Radical Black Joi. Her work explores “Black Joy as both a radical act and a necessary practice, using her work to challenge narratives of disposability and resilience.” She wrote, “Growing up in America, where Blackness and Joy are often treated as contradictions, my work unapologetically asserts that our joy is not just resistance—it is our birthright. I create art that challenges narratives of struggle by illuminating the moments of joy that define and sustain us. Through vibrant colors, bold forms, and immersive storytelling, I document Black life in its fullness, centering overlooked moments of celebration, resilience, and love. My practice is a living archive of the beauty, complexity, and boundless creativity of Black life, reminding us that joy is not an escape—it is a revolution.” Sanchez will share her artwork and speak about how she conducts her culture work through community spaces, immersive environments, and large-scale installations.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Anthony D Kelly is an illustrator, writer, visual artist, and integrative psychotherapist, with extensive experience as a Gallery Administrator, Curator and Project Facilitator from his time at Basement Project Space in Cork, Ireland. He was chosen as Kolaj Magazine‘s World Collage Day Artist 2023. His work has been shown across Ireland, Europe and in the US and he delivered workshops and lectures at Collagistas Festivals 5 & 6 in Dublin and Brussels. His work has been featured in many publications including Art Reveal, Creativ Paper, Murze Magazine, Kolaj Magazine, PoetryXCollage Vols. 2 and 7, Kolaj Magazine World Collage Day 2023 Special Edition, Collage Artist Trading Cards, Pack 9, and the recently released publications Empty Columns are a Place to Dream, Artists in the Archives, and Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus from Kolaj Institute and Kasini House. His work is in the permanent collections of Mayo County Council, Kolaj Institute, and The Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History. His studies include Arts Administration, Arts Participation and Global Development and Humanistic Psychotherapy. Kelly lives and works in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland. Learn more at the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory and www.freeformtrouble.com.

Breasia Hayes has been a performing artist for as long as she can remember. For more than six years, she has curated and hosted open mics in Kansas City, New Orleans, Costa Rica, and Miami. In 2023, during her second pregnancy, she turned to collage as a creative outlet and quickly fell in love with the medium. What began as an artistic release soon became her primary form of expression alongside poetry. She looks forward to a lifetime of creating, sharing, and expanding the language of her art, where poetry and collage intertwine to tell stories that transcend time and space. The artist lives and works in Kansas City. Learn more on Instagram @brevsivcollvge.

Savannah Green is a multidimensional artist and healer currently creating in the woods of New York. She holds a BFA from Boston University, while also studying painting and collage since the age of two with Cristina Biaggi. Green has spent the last few years studying and practicing various forms of energy healing, breathwork and meditation and recently received her reiki masters. She was awarded the 2022 Arts Alive Award from Arts Westchester; was artist-in-residence at L’Appartamento in Naples, Italy; and, since 1997, has shown her work extensively, most recently a solo show at Compere Collective in Brooklyn, New York. Learn more at www.portalsrealm.com.

C. Joi Sanchez, also known as Radical Black Joi, is a Brooklyn-born, Bronx-based polymath artist, writer, and curator whose work spans visual art, poetry, performance, and community engagement. Sanchez studied photography at New York University and business at Brooklyn College. Since 2011, she has been a resident artist at WOW Café Theater, curating and producing spaces for marginalized artists in and around New York City. Her poetry and art books, B.L.A.H. Vol 1–3, have earned Pushcart Prize nominations, Buzzfeed and Dazed magazine mentions, and placement in the Brooklyn Public Library. Her visual work has been exhibited in galleries across New York, including Kente Royal Gallery, Brooklyn Art Cave, and Washington Walls. She has been a resident artist with organizations including The Laundromat Project, Harlem River Yacht Club, and Unruly Collective. Through her Creating With Black Joy workshops, the artist integrates self-development with artistic practice, empowering youth and adults to cultivate joy as an act of resistance. Learn more at www.thegodis.art.

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.