Documentation of Secrets of Reading: In Conversation with Bahar Behbahani and Tishan Hsu

Documentation of the program Secrets of Reading: In Conversation with Bahar Behbahani and Tishan Hsu that took place on September 20, 2019.

As a creative form, the book is the synthesis of a writer’s thoughts and the use of language to express them. What changes when a visual artist engages with a writer’s work? What kinds of connections occur when two creative souls encounter each other? We hosted an intimate conversation between visual artists Bahar Behbahani and Tishan Hsu on two texts that have significantly influenced their practice, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience by Yi-Fu Tuan and A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guttari, respectively. In this conversation we joined in an exploration of the space in between the presence and absence of the artist, the author, the book and the artwork, and its potential to form a site where the historical, the personal, the mystical, and the spiritual meet and weave.

This event marked the closing celebration of the Under the Influence: A Traveling Library of Books that Inspire Artists installation that was presented at Asia Art Archive in America throughout the summer 2019. The conversation was moderated by AAA-A’s Furen Dai and Cici Wu and was followed by a reception in the garden.