Photographer Tira Khan discusses her series, Reading the Room: Reconstructing the Boston Athenæum, with Lauren Graves, Polly Thayer Starr Fellow in American Art and Culture.  Khan served as the Athenæum's Artist in Residence  in 2022, and was commissioned to create a series of photographs documenting the library's 15,000 square foot expansion.  The series  captures the library's character as an institution that has its roots in Brahmin Boston, and is also part art museum, part cultural institution. It combines documentary photographs with images of book spines and endpapers from the library's circulating collection. Introduction by John Buchtel, Curator of Rare Books. The podcast was recorded during an artist talk at the Athenæum on March 16. The exhibition will be on display until mid-May, 2023.

Produced by Brian James Wanders.

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The Boston Athenæum hosted a conversation with its Artist in Residence, Tira Khan, and Laura Weinstein, the Ananda Coomaraswamy Curator of Islamic and Asian Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. They discussed Khan's photography series, A Place I Never Knew. The series depicts her return to her family’s ancestral home in India. The photographs were taken in Rampur, a Muslim-majority city in Uttar Pradesh. Images include portraits of residents, old palaces, and urban homes. To view the images, visit tirakhan.com.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tirakhan.substack.com