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In this Research and Academic Program lecture, Keelan Overton (Independent Scholar / Clark Fellow) describes the Emamzadeh Yahya Project (est. 2021), the aim of which is to increase awareness and understanding of the Emamzadeh Yahya shrine complex and its dispersed tiles, collections, and archives worldwide, without pursuing commercial, political, or institutional objectives. The project’s key values are independence (of conception and production), collaboration (between individuals and disciplines), and accessibility (across languages, formats, and audiences). This talk provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the project’s evolution and first scholarly product: The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine. This website is an online exhibition, exhibition catalogue, and academic edited volume all in one and features the work of over forty participants. Overton shares how the EYV Project’s values, goals, and methods were identified and why it has sought to chart some alternative paths in research, museology, and publishing. She also considers the website’s reception since its launch in January 2025, and some of its final features, including participatory initiatives.Keelan Overton is an independent scholar and art historian based in Santa Barbara, California, specializing in the Perso-Islamic world from Iran to India. She has worked as a curator inside museums and independently, and her publications have explored such topics as patterns of collecting and museology in the field of “Islamic art,” diachronic histories of manuscripts and buildings, and cultural relations between Iran and the Deccan. Since 2021, she has directed an independent, interdisciplinary, and international research project devoted to the Emamzadeh Yahya shrine complex at Varamin. The first outcome is a website that charts some alternative paths in museology, publishing, collaboration, and accessibility. At the Clark, Overton will complete some final aspects of the website.
Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. A 5 pm reception in the Manton Research Center reading room precedes the event. Details: clarkart.edu/events
Image: Entrance of the Emamzadeh Yahya complex at Varamin, Iran, March 2024. Photo: Maryam Rafeienezhad
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