Josie Rozell is an analog collagist and poet living and creating in Berlin, by way of Hawaii and New Zealand. Working primarily with antique newsprint, vintage magazines and nature books, Josie combines her love of paper composition and storytelling to create surreal and unexpected images. Paper ephemera cut from both retro and futuristic sources are recontextualized into energetic scenes that explore the relationship between humans and nature.
With a degree in English Literature and Education, Josie brings a strong sense of narration and accessibility to her collages, guiding her viewer in a quest to embrace the unexpected. To further explore the interconnectedness of humanity and nature, her collages are typically accompanied by poems. Her first book, Articulated Soul (2021), tells the story of living in Kansas, Austria, Indonesia, New Zealand and Hawaii through verse and collage. It was selected as a Blurb best seller and was featured on the set of High School Musical the Series on Disney+. Her next collection, Deep Breath, features American sonnets and collages and will be published in 2023 by Ambitious Storytellers.
Her adventures began as a young lass, when she spent a portion of her childhood in Glasgow, Scotland. Primary school at a former insane asylum and an all-inclusive Castle Pass can truly make an explorer out of a child. As soon as she could, she left the United States to study English and German at Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, in Austria, and obtained an English Education degree from a small teaching college in Kansas in tandem. Before leaving the Mid-West for good, she trained to run a 100-mile race in the mountains of northwest Arkansas in the winter of 2018. Unfortunately, due to tumultuous tornado-inspired weather, the race was cancelled hours before it started. Not one to be deterred, Josie ran the 100 miles on her own with the support of her parents, who met her on the trail every 5 miles with an avocado sandwich. It took her 31 rainy hours and spanned from 4pm on Friday night to midnight on Saturday.
After her ultramarathon adventure, Josie completed her student teaching in Jakarta, Indonesia, at a British private school in the district of Serpong. From there, she obtained a working holiday visa for New Zealand and spent seven months in Auckland working as an au pair and a chef. The summer session she used to thru-hike the South Island of New Zealand on her own, a feat of 1,400 km in 50 days. With the remaining time allotted on her visa, Josie bought a $1,000 1996 Honda CRV and toured the South Island, working odd-jobs at vineyards and hostels. Her next goal, she decided, was to cycle around the world.
When her visa was up, she took the cheapest flight out of New Zealand to a place where she could work–Hawai’i. Although not keen on crowds nor tourism, she had found a full-time gig at a hostel in Honolulu, and couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a free place to live. Not too long after moving to Hawai’i, she met and fell in love with her future husband, the German engineering wizard Joachim Schneider. Plans adapted. Around the world became six month stints. Six month stints met COVID-19 and became cycling the United States.
In May of 2021, she set off to solo-cycle the west coast of the United States. Her bike was brand new, a gift from her coworkers at the Veterinary clinic where she worked as a Vet Technician, an extraordinary gift, since her touring bicycle had been stolen two weeks before she was due to begin. She cycled north-bound along the Pacific Coast Highway, a direction most cyclists refuse to take due to consistent coastal south-bound winds. She had cycled 21 days and had nearly reached the Oregon border when she was hit from behind by a car at 60 mph. Fate and a bright pink helmet were on her side. She was rushed to the hospital and deemed completely sound, escaping with naught but a pair of skinned knees.
Returning to Honolulu, she licked her wounds and saved up for bicycle number three of the tour. In September of 2021, she completed the tour by cycling to Seattle from the same spot where she had been hit. In October, Joachim and Josie eloped in Kailua Bay, paddling surfboards and reciting hand-written vows amongst a small circle of friends.
After completing a a 120-hour TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) from the University of Toronto with specializations in Teaching Abroad and Teaching English to Arabic Speakers, she moved to Berlin, Germany with her husband. She is now pursuing a master’s degree in North American Literature from Freie Universität with a focus in postcolonial literature.