Talk & PanelOnline via Zoom3 – 5pm BST, 27.05.2025

Librarians-in-ResidenceReading Asia, Elsewhere: Diasporic Reading Rooms in ActionOrganised by te editions

te editions

te editions is a curatorial, editorial and publishing collective operating between New York and Beijing. Investigating historical and contemporary social landscapes through a microscopic lens, the collective explores how cultures encounter, collapse and transform within global flows. te editions launched the bilingual annual te magazine in 2021, commissions cross-disciplinary contributions and collaborates with artists, scholars and communities to produce publications. Recent collaborations include archival workshops at Columbia University, public readings at Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum and bilingual salons on publication as social architecture.

te editions was the 2025 Asymmetry Librarians-in-Residence.

Asia Art Archive in America

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.

Accent Sisters

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.

Common Imprint

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.

The Mosaic Rooms

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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