The Purple Thread - Hospitality Exhibition

A collective artwork about hospitality

Collage & Connect invites you to take part in a large collective artwork created for an exhibition about hospitality and what connects us.

Many artists from different creative backgrounds will present their own interpretation of the theme.

Hospitality can take many forms: opening a door, making space, protecting, listening, sharing, or welcoming someone into your story. It can be intimate or political, fragile or powerful.

Now it is our turn to express it through collage.

Each collage will become part of the whole, connected by a purple thread, and presented during a 2 weeks exhibition:

📍 8–18 October 2026
📍 in a symbolic place of hospitality in Marseille

Each collage will become part of the whole, connected by the purple thread.

The works will be sold, and the proceeds will support an association helping women in vulnerable situations. (Its name will be announced soon.)

How to take part

Download the purple thread

Several files are available at the bottom of this page. For analogue collage, print your chosen file at full size: 15 × 15 cm.

The points where the thread enters and leaves the square must stay in the same position, so it can connect with the neighbouring collages. Inside the square, you may cut, cover, extend or transform the thread freely.

Create your collage

Create an original 15 × 15 cm collage, analogue or digital.

Your work should express your vision of hospitality and connection. All interpretations are welcome: poetic, personal, abstract, narrative or symbolic.

Share your collage on Instagram

When your collage is finished, share it on Instagram, invite @collage.and.connect as a collaborator and add #thepurplethread.

You may explain what hospitality means to you, or simply let your collage speak.

Then invite other collage artists to join by tagging them or sending them the open call: Hospitality also means being welcomed, then making space for someone else.

The project will grow from person to person, just as the purple thread continues from one collage to the next.

Send your collage

Your collage must arrive by 20 September 2026.

Analogue collage

Required size: 15 × 15 cm on thick paper.

Write on the back:

– artist name;
– Instagram account;
– email address (optional);
– city and country;
– title, if applicable.

My postal address will be sent by DM on request.

To make my life much easier, please send me an email, just as you would for a digital collage. 😊 As a bonus, your collage can also be featured on the event's webpage

Digital collage

Send a high-resolution JPG, with no cut-out or special editing to do, to: marylene.molinalira@gmail.com

Include the same information in your email and name your file:

Collage_connect_purple_surname_name_1.jpg

( increment the number if you submit several collages )

Pratical Information

Theme: Hospitality and what connects us
Size: 15 × 15 cm
Technique: Collage
Common element: The provided purple thread
Participation: One finished original collage
Invite: One or more artists
Deadline: 20 September 2026
Exhibition: 8–18 October 2026
Instagram collaboration: @collage.and.connect
Hashtag: #thepurplethread