RESIDENCY UPDATE
The Elusive X: Virtual PoetryXCollage Residency
A five-session, virtual residency, 21 February-22 March 2026
Poetry is an art form that uses language and rhythm to express ideas, convey emotions, and share stories. In poetry, the aesthetic qualities of language make deeper meaning out of words, condensed language, and fragmented text. At its heart, collage is the juxtaposition of visual imagery composed in such a way as to do the same. Each of these art forms invites their audiences to revel in the complexity, richness, and nuance of contemporary life. Since 2022, Kolaj Institute has explored the intersection of poetry and collage. In Kolaj 32, Rod T. Boyer’s article “Mind the Gap: Collision and Context in Haiku and Collage“ compares the disjunction that occurs in haiku with a similar phenomenon in collage. Since then, we organized a series of residencies to explore the intersection of poetry and collage. We are interested in found poetry, blackout poetry, collage poems, haikus, centos, response collages, response poems, word scrambles, concrete poetry, scatter collage poems, and other poems and artwork that inhabit this world. Kolaj Institute’s PoetryXCollage project explores and documents the intersection of poetry and collage through a series of residencies, workshops, exhibitions, and PoetryXCollage, a printed journal of artwork and writing that operates at the intersection.
In April 2026, Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans will present the exhibition, “The Fragment as Verse on the Wall”, where all of the work in the exhibition stands at the intersection of poetry and collage. Often work at the intersection of poetry and collage is made for the page. In this exhibition, we will consider how artwork at the intersection operates on the gallery wall. When viewing this work, we are encouraged to think of the fragment which may be text or image as a verse in a complete poem.
To support artists working at the intersection of poetry and collage, Kolaj Institute organized two residencies. A virtual residency led by poet and collagist Jennifer Roche took place between 21 February and 22 March 2026. An in-person residency took place at Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans, 12-16 April 2026, and led by Ric Kasini Kadour. In each of these residencies, artists explored the intersection of poetry and collage, considered the role of these two artforms in their artist practice, and developed strategies for diffusing their artwork on the page and the gallery wall.
In the Virtual Residency,”The Elusive X”, artists concentrated on the intersection between Poetry X Collage, the dynamic space where these two methods of creativity intersect and inform one another. Our core path of exploration was: How do we bring the visceral, linguistic precision of poetry and the fragmented, material nature of collage together? Jennifer Roche led participants on a journey of inquiry to explore what poetry and collage means for them, their work, and our culture. Interdisciplinary Poet S. Erin Batiste joined the residency as a guest speaker, where she presented her own work and what those working in the tradition of Radical Black Feminists are doing at the intersection of poetry and collage, why now and why it matters. Ric Kasini Kadour shared PoetryXCollage’s history and speak about the curatorial and editorial visions which guide the project.
OUTCOME
After the Residency, artists were invited to submit work for the PoetryXCollage journal and for an exhibition on Poetry & Collage at Kolaj Institute Gallery, “The Fragment as Verse on the Wall”, 18 April-23 May 2026.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
6″x6″; collage on paper; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
Caitlin Downs, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA
www.caitlindowns.com
12″x12″; archival pigment print; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
Ellen Davidson Cantor, Rolling Hills Estates, California, USA
www.ellencantorphotography.com
7.25″x9.875″; paper collage; 2017. Courtesy of the artist.
George Brandon, South Orange, New Jersey, USA
www.reverbnation.com
11.5″x11.5″; copy of photo, magazine paper; woodcut fragments from old book; 2024. Courtesy of the artist.
Heather Wishik, Woodstock, Vermont, USA
5″x3″; collage with film; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
Jeannene Bragg, Denver, Colorado, USA
29″x18″; acrylic papers, acrylic skins; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
Nannette Nilsson, Greenville, South Carolina, USA
5″x5″; magazine and newspaper images, old paper scraps on paper; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Suzanne Gore, Boise, Idaho, USA
www.suzannegore.com
12″x11.5″; acrylic collage with graphite on paper; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
Teri Bevelacqua, Olympia, Washington, USA
www.teribevelacqua.com
ABOUT JENNIFER ROCHE
Jennifer Roche (Chicago, Illinois, USA) is a poet, writer, and collage artist. She is Pushcart Prize-nominated and the author of two chapbooks: The Synonym Tables (The Poetry Question, 2021) and 20, erasure poems from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Alternating Current Press, 2020). Her poetry work has appeared in SWWIM; Storm Cellar; Tule Review; Footnote: A Literary Journal of History; and Oyez Review. She was named a “Writer to Watch in 2019 & Beyond” by the Guild Literary Complex. Roche took part in Kolaj Institute’s first Poetry & Collage Residency in 2022 and her work was featured in PoetryXCollage, Volume 1.
ABOUT S. ERIN BATISTE
S. Erin Batiste’s (Brooklyn, New York, USA) practice is rooted in accumulation and maximalism, and she is influenced by beauty, otherworlds, waymaking and migration, divination and astrology, Americana, archives, and what remains. Her work examines themes of freedom, the complexity of memory, what we consider history, and the ways we all inherit and collect possessions and stories. Providence (self-published, 2024) and The Glory Will Be Revealed (University of New Orleans Press, forthcoming, 2026) draw on early 20th century mugshot photos of Black women and girls. The book itself is a performative intervention. Batiste is a 2025-2028 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Literature and a 2025 Powerhouse Artist Subsidy Program Recipient working with the PHA Printshop. Batiste runs Revival Archival Cards, Collage & Salvage—a mobile arts studio in Brooklyn. The artist took part in Kolaj Institute’s New Orleans Collage Artist Lab: City as Archive in 2022; the Collage Magic Artist Residency in 2023; and was a presenter in the symposium, COLLAGE::BOOKS at VolumeMTL in October 2025.
ABOUT RIC KASINI KADOUR
Ric Kasini Kadour, a 2021 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Fellow, is a writer, artist, publisher, cultural worker, and the director of Kolaj Institute. His curation work includes exhibitions in Louisiana, New Mexico, Quebec, Scotland, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Vermont. Kadour is the editor and publisher of Kolaj Magazine, as well as the editor of the Kolaj Institute journals, PoetryXCollage and Folklore Collage Society. He has written for a number of galleries and his writing has appeared in publications including Hyperallergic, OEI, Art New England (where he was the former Vermont editor), and Wissenschaft und Frieden. Kadour maintains an active art practice and his photography, collage, film and sculpture have been exhibited in and are part of private collections in Australia, Europe and North America. In January-February 2020, he was artist-in-residence at MERZ Gallery in Sanquhar, Scotland. He holds a BA in Comparative Religion from the University of Vermont. Kadour splits his time between Montreal and New Orleans.