Librarians-in-Residence: Public Programming
READING ASIA, ELSEWHERE: DIASPORIC READING ROOMS IN ACTION
Asia Art Archive in America, Accent Sisters, Common Imprint, The Mosaic Rooms, and te editions
Online via Zoom
3–5PM BST, 27.05.2025
Across the shifting landscape of global art publishing, we are witnessing a resurgence of self-organised libraries and independent reading spaces. In the face of increasing restrictions on publishing in various parts of Asia, many publications now circulate primarily through overseas channels – from Berlin and London to New York. These reading rooms have taken on renewed significance: as sites of resistance, care, and collective remembrance.
Operating beyond the boundaries of conventional institutions, such spaces reimagine what it means to read together, to archive from the margins, and to publish otherwise. Often hybrid in form – simultaneously libraries, bookshops, community hubs, and curatorial platforms – they activate their collections through displays, talks, workshops, and public gatherings. Here, reading is not only an act of engagement, but a method and a medium.
Moderated by te editions, our 2025 Librarians-in-Residence, the online conversation brings together five initiatives: Asia Art Archive in America (New York), Accent Sisters (New York), Common Imprint (Berlin), The Mosaic Rooms (London) and our freshly rooted and growing library in East London. Each presents a distinct approach to circulation, curation, and engagement with contemporary Asian artistic publishing in transnational and intercultural frameworks. Together, we ask: how do diasporic reading spaces negotiate their relationship with Asia? What new forms of collectivity, authorship, and care do they make possible? And how might they intervene in dominant narratives through the quiet, radical act of reading?
The conversation is a rare gathering and exchange, offering insight into the structural, conceptual, and affective labour that sustains these spaces, shedding light on their operational models, curatorial urgencies, and the communities they nurture.
The session will feature short presentations from invited speakers, followed by a live conversation and audience Q&A. Free and open to the public with registration. The event will be recorded and made available via our online platforms.
BIOGRAPHY
Founded in 2009, Asia Art Archive in America (AAAinA) is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and making accessible information on recent art from and of Asia. Our mission is to foster public understanding and specialised research, spark dialogue and critical thinking, and build community — with a particular focus on amplifying the under-recognised art histories and practices of the Asian American diaspora.
To achieve this goal, AAAinA maintains a publicly accessible Reading Room in Brooklyn, New York that comprises over 5,000 monographs, exhibition catalogues, reference books, periodicals, and audio-visual materials about contemporary art related to Asia. AAAinA also organises a regular programme of talks, screenings, exhibitions, residencies, workshops, participatory projects, and panels with artists, curators, critics, and scholars in the field.
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Accent Sisters was founded in New York, initially a writing community for diaspora writers, currently a bookstore carrying multilingual literary and art books, an independent publishing house discovering original, imaginative, and authentic voices, and an art space with a focus on cross-disciplinary art. All our projects are tied together by one mission: to connect and empower marginalised and diasporic creatives, to build a space for stereotype-defying, boundary-pushing works.
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Common Imprint is a reading room and project space in Berlin. The reading room presents over 1000 independent publications from Asia, open by every Weekend. It aims to create a shared platform and laboratory for investigating publication-related disciplines from South-East and East Asia. The space will be for anyone who loves books and will host talks, events, workshops, and exhibitions relating to Asian publications.
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Established in 2009, The Mosaic Rooms is a leading London-based contemporary arts space and bookshop which centres collective learning, care and idea exchange. It is dedicated to supporting work from global perspectives and has a focus on contemporary culture from the Arab world and beyond. Activities include a free yearly public programme that delivers exhibitions, creative learning projects, and multidisciplinary live events. All programmes are artist-led and participant centred and developed through meaningful and collaborative partnerships.
The Mosaic Rooms Bookshop is a space to encounter books and meet people. We offer a curated selection of books, zines, rare editions and prints, from the Arab world and beyond. We regularly organise book launches, reading groups as well as our annual publishing fair, Small Press Fest. Over the years, we have also co-published several catalogues, monographs, artists books and zines with artists we have worked with.
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te editions is a curatorial, editorial, and publishing collective operating in New York and Beijing, dedicated to exploring the intersection of art and the humanities. We examine historical and contemporary social landscapes through a diversified and microscopic lens, focusing on how cultures encounter, collapse, and transform each other within global cultural flows.
te editions is currently the 2025 Librarians-in-Residence at Asymmetry.