You're Invited: A conversation on MENA Publishing, Archives and NYC + a Guided Tour of NYPL's Niyū Yūrk exhibit
passerby is presenting a conversation with Danya Issawi, Hiba Abid, Hira Ahmed, and Wael Morcos at the NYPL on their grand opening of their latest exhibit
passerby is thrilled to invite you to the grand opening of the New York Public Library’s new exhibition Niyū Yūrk: Middle Eastern and North African Lives in the City, presented by the Center for Educators and Schools:
5:00 PM — Opening cocktails
6:00 PM — Special musical performance
6:30 PM — Panel: Diasporic Prints: MENA Publishing, Archives, and New York City with writer Danya Issawi, curator Hiba Abid, Acaica Mag founder Hira Ahmed, and designer Wael Morcos
7:00 PM — Guided tour of the exhibition led by Hiba Abid, Curator of NYPL’s Middle Eastern & Islamic Collections
Details below. This event is exclusive to passerby club members (paid subscribers).*
about the panel conversation
Diasporic Prints: MENA Publishing, Archives, and New York City gathers writers, editors, curators, and designers who are actively shaping independent publishing in New York to reflect on the long history of diasporic publishing in the city — and its future. From zines to small magazines to design-led print ephemera circulating within immigrant communities, publishing has always been a public good: a collective infrastructure of memory, belonging, and visibility.
This conversation explores how diasporic publishing has shaped New York’s cultural identity; how aesthetics, circulation, and archives function as power; and what publishing — especially independent publishing — needs now in a shifting political and economic moment for both the city and diaspora communities. Central to this conversation is the role of libraries, not only as repositories, but as stewards of these materials: institutions that collect, preserve, and make diasporic works accessible, ensuring that the creative and political labor of independent publishers continues to be part of the city’s living and future archives.
about the panelists
Danya Issawi
Danya Issawi is a writer at New York Magazine and The Cut. She previously worked across the newsroom at the New York Times, including on the “Style” desk and the Pulitzer Prize-winning COVID-tracking team. She’s currently working on a manuscript for her first novel.
Revisit her guest edit of our monthly recs below.
Hiba Abid
Hiba Abid is the Curator for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at The New York Public Library. She is responsible for the development and promotion of the Library’s historic Middle Eastern and Islamic collections as well as its contemporary materials produced in the Middle East, North Africa, and diasporic communities in the United States. Revisit our interview with the curator below.
As well as her recommended reading list to accompany the exhibition in our last monthly recs (issue 55).
Hira Ahmed
Founder and editor-in-chief of Acacia, a magazine of politics and culture by the Muslim left.
Wael Morcos
Wael Morcos is a graphic designer/type designer and partner at the NY based studio Morcos Key. Wael leads multi-lingual identity, editorial, environment and digital projects for art and cultural institutions between the USA and the Middle East. Wael Graduated from RISD with an MFA in Graphic Design in 2013 and has been been featured in Print Magazine’s “15 under 30,” was named a Young Gun by the Art Directors Club, an Ascender by the Type Directors Club and winner of the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Design.
about the exhibition
Through an array of materials—including local newspapers, rare books, archival documents, prints, artists’ books, photographs, music records, and film—the exhibition showcases how these voices have been preserved and presented. Niyū Yūrk creates a dynamic dialogue across time, illustrating the evolving nature of MENA migration to the city as well as the Library’s role in documenting this history. While reflecting on new directions in collecting practices, it also aims to address gaps in those practices and envision a more inclusive archival future.
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