TalkAbout — Fabricating Authenticity

Ruhee Maknojia

Join us for a conversation in the gallery with exhibiting artist Ruhee Maknojia, Sarah Canright, and Dr. Faegheh Shirazi about our current exhibition Fabricating Authenticity. This discussion will explore how cultural institutions manufacture authenticity and how narratives are constructed.

TalkAbout is a program that facilitates thought provoking conversations with artists and the people who inspire them. This event is free and open to the public. RSVP strongly encouraged. 

 

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Ruhee Maknojia is an artist based in Houston, Texas. Her work examines how literature, philosophy, history, and legal systems undergo fragmentation when transferred across new frameworks. She received her M.F.A. in Visual Arts from Columbia University in 2019. In spring 2024, Maknojia served as Artist-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she taught advanced painting and graduate seminar courses. In 2025, she was appointed Dean at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She currently serves as Arts & Culture Lead for the Ismaili Center. Maknojia’s work has been exhibited at institutions and galleries including 839 Gallery and Subliminal Projects in Los Angeles, California; the Lenfest Center for the Arts and the LeRoy Neiman Center for the Arts in New York City; Rice University’s Moody Center for the Arts; Asia Society Texas; and Anya Tish Gallery in Houston, Texas.

Dr. Faegheh Shirazi is a Professor Emeritus at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, the Islamic Studies program The University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of numerous academic articles in diverse journals and contributor of book chapters and encyclopedia articles. Dr. Shirazi is author of five published books, including an edited volume: The Veil Unveiled: Hijab in Modern Culture, University Press of Florida, 2001; Velvet Jihad: Muslim Women’s Quiet Resistance to Islamic Fundamentalism, University Press of Florida, 2009; Muslim Women in War and Crisis: From Reality to Representation, The University of Texas Press, 2010; Brand Islam: The Commodification of Piety, University of Texas Press, 2016; and Islamicate Textiles: Fashion, Fabric, and Ritual, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2023. Dr. Shirazi’s research interests focus on the Islamic popular religious practices; rituals and their influence on gender identity and discourse in Muslim societies with a primary focus on Iran, Islamic veiling, material culture, textiles, and clothing. She also serves on a number of academic editorial boards nationally and internationally for various journals and book publications.

Sarah Canright received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and began exhibiting shortly after graduation with the Chicago Imagists. She later moved to New York and was shown in a variety of places and was included in a Whitney Biennial. She was represented by the Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago and the Pam Adler Gallery in New York. Over the years she received three National Endowment for the Arts grants and a New York State Council for the Arts grant. Her teaching career began with visiting artist positions at various universities. She then taught at the School of Visual Arts in NY, the Philadelphia College of Art and Princeton University before beginning at the University of Texas.