Exhibition Overview: Text, Paratext, and Image
Channel: RISD Museum
Date: 22/01/2021

Recorded 01.15.21

Explore the limitless relationships between multiple forms of text and images seen in Qur’an manuscripts, historical Japanese prints, and contemporary works with guest curators Kuan-hung Liu (Brown University PhD 2023, History of Art and Architecture) and Kimia Rahnavardi (RISD MDes 2020, Interior Architecture, Adaptive Reuse) in conversation with Wai Yee Chiong, Assistant Curator of Asian Art. This overview of Text, Paratext, and Images offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the curators considered issues of artistic engagement with inscriptions, manipulations, and materials alongside intercultural exchange through circulation and interpretation. 



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Kuan-hung Liu is a PhD student in the History of Art and Architecture department at Brown University. He received his BA (2011, in Chemistry) and MA (2014, in Art History) at National Taiwan University, majoring in medieval Chinese art and focusing on calligraphy and cultural activities of family in the Southern Song dynasty. Kuan-hung worked at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, doing research in scientific analysis of artifacts, and now he studies the relationship between art and printing as well as the construction of paragons in art.

Kimia Rahnavardi (RISD Master of Design 2020 Interior Architecture) is a Designer at Jill Neubauer Architects in Falmouth, Massachusetts. During her time at RISD, Rahnavardi was a graduate assistant in the Asian Art Department and the Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Fellow in the Decorative Arts and Design Department at the RISD Museum. She graduated from Manhattanville College in 2018 with a BA in Studio Art.

This session provides information to support faculty teaching; artistic practices, and ways to integrate the exhibition into studio and classroom exploration.

Image: Persian, Isfandiyar and the Dragon, ca. 1680. Museum Appropriation Fund.