Gain of Function: New Mutations/Old Traditions at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2025

PROJECT AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2025

Gain of Function: New Mutations/Old Traditions

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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.

Since 2020, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA artist Emily Denlinger has been engaged in an ongoing contemporary art project, “Gain of Function: New Mutation”. Analog collaged figures made of fragments from fashion and vintage National Geographic magazines appear in ethereal amorphous dreamlike landscapes which, at times, is a result of a hybrid process of analog and digital collage. Placed in a surrealist landscape void of a particular time and place, “the figures reference contemporary society, distribution of information, classism, human interactions, and attempts to understand and control the natural world around us.” The project responds to “research surrounding the intersections of power dynamics, military industrial complex, community & identity, ecology, and mutations” and the images reference cell reproduction, genetic mutations, breakdowns in communication, purposeful mutations of information, and misinformation campaigns. In short, “Gain of Function: New Mutation” tries to digest the most dystopian aspects of contemporary life and offer the viewer a path to understanding the complex forces that shape our present day and future. Project exists as locative collage photographs, installations, short film, performance, and community engagement activities.

In recent iterations of the project, Denlinger has considered how people have traversed radical technological, social, and political shifts. “Communities all over the world perform similar rituals to ward off evil and welcome positive energies into their lives. It is interesting to me how ubiquitous these folk traditions are, they seem to be a result of simultaneous invention. These events build community resilience,” wrote Denlinger. “I have been considering how different people and communities remained resilient through the recent pandemic and global events. How do we retain and grow hope? How do the people we surround ourselves with help facilitate that in our lives?”

At Kolaj Fest New Orleans, Denlinger will manifest a new iteration of “Gain of Function: New Mutations/Old Traditions” as a collaborative project. At the New Orleans Healing Center, she will create a collage installation in which participants are invited to place collage figures which will be photographed or filmed. The resulting documentation will be published as a zine by Kolaj Institute. A selected number of artworks made will be exhibited at Kolaj Institute in December 2025 as part of an exhibition on photography and collage.

WORKSHOP AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2025

Resilience & Welcoming in Hope: Collage, Installation, & Photography

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How do we retain and grow hope? How do the people we surround ourselves with help facilitate that in our lives? Communities all over the world perform rituals to ward off evil and welcome positive energies into their lives, often around the new year. “It is interesting to me how ubiquitous these folk traditions are, they seem to be a result of simultaneous invention,” wrote Cape Girardeau, Missouri artist Emily Denlinger. “These events build community resilience. I have been considering how different people and communities remained resilient through the recent pandemic and global events.” In this workshop, participants will work together to create analog collage figures installation that will be photographed and filmed into a collage installation as part of the “Gain of Function: New Mutations/Old Traditions” project. Working together, the group will photograph the characters in the constructed space and talk about the results. Denlinger will share strategies for lighting and camera angles and how to add magic and mystery to an image through the use of narrow depth of field. The resulting photographs will become a zine published by Kolaj Institute and a photograph will be included in Kolaj Institute’s exhibition on photography and collage in December. Denlinger will be assisted by Southeast Missouri State University students Abbey Grey, Grace Merickel, and Allie Murphree.

ABOUT EMILY DENLINGER

Emily Denlinger has worked as Area Head and Professor of Digital Arts, Photography and New Media at Southeast Missouri State University since 2009. Originally from Ohio, she holds BFA in 2D Art with a Concentration in Photography from Bowling Green State University, and an MA in Digital Art and an MFA in Photography and Digital Art from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her collages have been exhibited across the USA and are held in collections internationally. Denlinger’s collage animation, Angel Baby vs. Drone Eagle, was part of Collage on Screen program at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2024. She also took part in Kolaj Institute’s Collage on Screen Artist Residency in 2023 and the Collage & Illustration Residency: Frankenstein. In addition to her gallery practice, Denlinger creates accessible wearable art that is created for commissions or sold in the local community at boutiques and fundraising sales. In her free time, she works with the Cape Girardeau County Clerk’s office to promote voting and voter registration and as an election judge. Learn more at the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory and www.emilydenlinger.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.