Lectures and Talks

In his work, which is part-autobiography and part-fantasy, photographer Tommy Kha explores fragmentation, the immigrant experience, and the evolving nature of identity. He reflects on family history, his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, his own life, and how the past reverberates in the present. Often infused with a sense of humor, Kha’s performative photographs playfully include himself, or extensions of himself in the forms of a mask or cutouts, in scenes before the camera, questioning what shapes identity and challenging the ways it can be represented in photography.

He is the 2021 recipient of the Next Step Award and his monograph Tommy Kha: Half, Full, Quarter was published by Aperture in 2023. Tommy Kha lives and works between Brooklyn, NY and Memphis, TN and currently teaches at Yale University.

Join us for a thought-provoking lecture on how art played a crucial role in shaping the nationalization of the East India Company between 1813 and 1858. Tom Young will examine how new artistic production in colonial India—driven by emerging technologies like lithography and steam navigation, as well as middle-class print formats such as periodicals, scrapbooks, and literary annuals—contributed to the destabilization of the Company’s political legitimacy. Young will also explore the influence of amateur sketching among Company employees and the broader impact of visual culture on British colonial governance.