In 2018, Kolaj Magazine initiated World Collage Day, an international celebration of collage on the Second Saturday of May. We invited artists and art venues to hold events on that day to celebrate collage. We saw fifty events in twenty-five countries and thousands of posts on social media using the hashtag, #worldcollageday. The following year, the event continued to grow. The next World Collage Day is May 9, 2020.

Each year, Kolaj Magazine partners with a collagist to create a poster for the event. New Orleans artist Michael Pajón was the 2018 World Collage Day Poster Artist. Rosie Schinners from British Columbia, Canada was the 2019 poster artist. We are pleased to announce the 2020 World Collage Day Poster Artist is the Australian-born, Barranquilla, Colombia-residing Emma Anna.

How did this come about? Emma Anna inspired us with a particular collage. An apron-clad housewife strikes a match on a giant pair of scissors. Two hands pop out of a bowler hat and shake boxes of diamonds on red anemone flowers. Scrabble tiles spell out the title: The Magician. The collage is part of Emma Anna’s “Tarot of the Golden Scissors” series. It combined the compositional expertise of a graphic artist with a whimsically, Dadaist spirit. When the collage came across our desk when preparing the 2019 World Collage Day Special Edition, we thought that would have made the perfect poster. Flash forward to Kolaj Fest New Orleans. We had a chance to meet Emma Anna in person and learn about her life in Barranquilla, where she runs the creative space La Casa Verde, started a collage collective, and regularly advocates for the arts in the community. We asked her to be the 2020 World Collage Day Poster Artist and she agreed.

The Magician by Emma Anna. | Photo by Emma Anna

“For me collage is akin to reading Tarot cards, the random selection of pieces, the juxtapositions, the act of shuffling everything into its right place. And there is a sense of revelation, a strange truth or message, that is often revealed in the final collage,” writes Emma Anna. “Collage is intuitive. It’s accessible to the masses. And it can be made from the simplest materials, often in my case, from materials collected from a life lived on the road, travelling between various points on the globe.”

Kolaj Magazine worked with Emma Anna to develop a 2020 World Collage Day Poster that will be used around the world to promote the annual international celebration of collage. The Poster will also appear on the cover of a Special Edition of the magazine that is issued in honor of the day.

You can read a profile of Emma Anna from the World Collage Day 2019 Special Edition and see more of her work in the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory.

Kolaj Magazine is a quarterly, printed, art magazine reviewing and surveying contemporary collage with an international perspective, interested in collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century art movement. Kolaj Magazine is possible through the support of subscribers in 36 countries around the world.

This article was originally published in the Kolaj Magazine.