What’s missing from the encyclopedia? This artist aims to fill in the gaps

VPM | By Manoush Zomorodi, Rachel Faulkner White and Sanaz Meshkinpour

Published June 27, 2025 at 3:13 PM EDT

Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode “How taking a second look can change your everything“

At an early age, Tavares Strachan noticed there was a lot missing from his family’s encyclopedia. Today, the artist searches for lost stories to include in his own Encyclopedia of Invisibility.

About Tavares Strachan

Tavares Strachan is a conceptual artist from the Bahamas. In 2005, he gained acclaim for his conceptual artwork The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want, for which he extracted a 4.5-ton block of Arctic ice and exhibited it in a solar-powered freezer in the Bahamas. His work, The Encyclopedia of Invisibility, features thousands of entries focused on historically marginalized individuals, places and events.

Strachan is a MacArthur Fellow.

This segment of the TED Radio Hour was produced by Rachel Faulkner White and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHourand email us at [email protected].

Web Resources

Related TED Bio: Tavares Strachan

Related TED Talk: The power of an image — and the mind behind it

Related TED Talk: A 3-step guide to believing in yourself

Related NPR Links

Fresh Air: For painter Titus Kaphar, forgiveness is ‘a weight lifted off of your shoulders’

The Picture Story: A look at the Met Museum’s exhibition on Black dandyism

Fine Art: Painter Amy Sherald asks: What is American?

Tags

NPR News

Manoush Zomorodi

Manoush Zomorodi is the host of TED Radio Hour. She is a journalist, podcaster and media entrepreneur, and her work reflects her passion for investigating how technology and business are transforming humanity.

Zomorodi is a co-founder of Stable Genius Productions and is the co-host and co-creator of ZigZag, the business podcast about being human. She also created, hosted, and was managing editor of the podcast Note to Self in partnership with WNYC Studios, which was named Best Tech Podcast of 2017 by The Academy of Podcasters.

Prior to her time at WNYC, Zomorodi reported and produced around the world for BBC News and Thomson Reuters, including a few years in Berlin.

She was named one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2018 and has received numerous awards for her work, including The Gracie for Best Radio Host in 2014 and 2018. Her book "Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Creative Self" (2017, St. Martin's Press) and her TED Talk are guides to surviving information overload and the "Attention Economy."

Zomorodi received a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University in English and fine arts. She is half-Persian and half-Swiss but was born in New York City, where she lives with her family.

See stories by Manoush Zomorodi