The Jameel Library Reading Groups return with Reading the Street: Voice, Aesthetics, and Meaning Across Regions, led by Priyanka Mehra. This three-part program approaches the street as a medium, a surface of inscription and a living archive. The series will compare how urban surfaces operate across Australia, India and West Asia under distinct cultural, legal and historical frameworks.

In the first session, Australia serves as a case study for the absorption of street culture where once-subversive graffiti has been archived, protected and commodified. Participants will examine how rebellion becomes an aesthetic asset and whether resistance can be maintained when the street is welcomed into official policy and city branding. Reading material includes texts by Alison Young and Lindsey Mancini.

Reading groups are free and open to all. Registration is required, as space is limited. Registered participants are expected to commit to all the sessions and reading material, attend the session they have registered for and contribute to a respectful and open discursive environment.

About Priyanka Mehra

Priyanka Mehra is a curator and cultural producer whose practice explores site-specificity and the street as both medium and subject, navigating the intersections of public art, institutions and urban space. She has worked across India, the UAE and KSA and served as the Exhibitions Manager and Programmes Curator at Ishara Art Foundation apart from working on large-scale public art interventions. Based in Dubai, her interdisciplinary research and curatorial practice examines the public sphere through the lens of the Global South.