Artists in the Archives: Beyond Humans

In Fall 2022 and Winter 2023, Kolaj Institute is presenting a series of Kolaj LIVE Online events in partnership with the Henry Sheldon Museum’s Stewart-Swift Research Center as part of the exhibition, “Artists in the Archive” . On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Stewart-Swift Research Center, the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History invited an international network of collage artists to engage with historic material in the archive and to create a folio of collage prints that reflect on the idea of community in a 21st century world. Learn more about the project HERE .
A community is made of more than humans. As part of their investigation into the archives of the Henry Sheldon Museum’s Stewart-Swift Research Center, collage artists considered what non-human elements shape our communities. When R. Galvan searched the Stewart-Swift Research Center archives for images of men, they found their attention driving to assorted photographs of animals and how people were forming communities around them. Thinking of how the land informs a sense of community, Todd Bartel questions Eurocentric notions of community using an 1859 history of Addison County. In doing this, Bartel asks us to consider how a spirit of Manifest Destiny renders invisible those whose land Europeans “settled” and ultimately their place in community. Taken with the many representations of winter in the archives, the collage of Florida-based Allison Spence speaks to the role the season plays in the collective identity of the community. These collage artists will be joined by Kolaj Institute Coordinator Christopher Kurts whose collage uses a World War II food rationing poster to draw our attention to the role food plays in building community.
ABOUT KOLAJ LIVE ONLINE
Kolaj LIVE Online is a series of virtual programs in the form of forums, panels, workshops, artist talks, studio visits, and other activities that allow people to come together, learn and talk about collage, and connect in real time to the collage community. Our goal is to bring the community together in a spirit of mutual support and fellowship.Kolaj LIVE Online manifests Kolaj Magazine and Kolaj Institute by bringing together artists, curators, and writers to share ideas that deepen our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century movement. Learn more at the SERIES WEBSITE .