Join Theodore Harris for a reading from the new and expanded edition of his book, Our Flesh of Flames, comprised of a suite of collages by the Philadelphia-based artist accompanied by captions written in response by the late poet Amiri Baraka. The reading will be followed by a conversation between Harris and Taji Ra’oof Nahl / TR7 and will take place in the Parkway Central Library's Montgomery Auditorium. In conjunction with an exhibition of the artist's collage work for Our Flesh of Flames and numerous other publications, on view in the Art Department and Literature Department 2nd floor hallway galleries through the end of 2024. 

Theodore A. Harris (1966-) is a Philadelphia-based visual artist and poet. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is in private and public collections such as Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Saint Louis University Museum of Art, La Salle University Art Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, McGill University Visual Arts Collection, Center for Africana Studies; University of Pennsylvania, Kislak Center Rare Books and Manuscript Library; University of Pennsylvania, and the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, and the Winston and Carolyn Lowe Collection. Harris is the co-founder of the Anti-Graffiti Network/Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.

Harris has also co-authored and authored books including Our Flesh of Flames (2019), Malcolm X as Ideology (2008) with Amiri Baraka, TRIPTYCH with Amiri Baraka and Jack Hirschman (2011), i ran from it and was still in it with Fred Moten (2007), and Thesentür: Conscientious Objector to Formalism (2017). He is the Founding Artistic Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Black Aesthetics. He is a 2022 Visual Artist Fellow CFEVA (Center For Emerging Visual Artists).

Taji Ra’oof Nahl / TR7 ( b. 1961, Philadelphia Pennsylvania) is an autodidact polymath, with works that materialize as staged production of audio & visual time and lens based media. Some works are crafted as site responsive mediums between museums, galleries, stage, streets & fields. At places such as Italian Palace, Tangier Morocco, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Icebox Project Space, Kislak Center For Rare Books And Manuscripts, Awbury Arboretum, Temple University, & Broad & Lehigh Ave. in  Philadelphia.

Furthermore as a Guggenheim Fellow of Fine Arts, Nahl's curatorial & collaborative modes of creating as he spearheads two informal collective, 2Spiral, art based, and The Other Sounds of Philadelphia, music based, has manifested works with, George Lewis, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Futurefamers, Theodore A. Harris, Hprizm, John Schlesinger, Sharon Chestnut, Nsenga Knight among others. 

Nahl's fascination with the phenomena of humanity’s triumph over difficulty is ultimately connected to processing and absorbing a very personal, inward search for mankind’s place in the universe. Influenced by his Islamic faith, Nahl’s art prompts greater self-awareness, with spatial, human interaction, furthermore the abstract dynamics to his producing assemblage sculptures with ready-made materials introduces poetic meaning for further pondering.