Thomas C. Laird, a photographer from New Orleans whose work appears in Taschen Publishing’s landmark work, The Murals of Tibet, will speak at 2 p.m., Saturday, July 7, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

This event is part of the regularly scheduled meeting of the library’s Theosophy and Self Transformation Discussion Group led by John Sameluk. It is free of charge and open to the public.

Tibet’s wall murals created by master artists during the past thousand years have remained hidden from the outside world until now. Over a series of five expeditions across Tibet, Thomas Laird used digital multi-image capture techniques to document more than 250 of the oldest and most important murals.

This work led to a ground breaking exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York, the first ever life size resolution images of Tibetan murals – the Mural of the Lukhang. They have been on continuous display since 2011.

American photographer, writer and artist Thomas C. Laird has explored the art, culture, and history of the Himalayas since 1972. Based in Nepal for three decades, his reporting and photography have been published globally by TIME, Geo, Newsweek, Le Figaro, National Geographic, and many others. His non-fiction books include a history of Tibet written with the Dalai Lama, translated into 14 languages.

The Theosophy and Self-Transformation Discussion Group encourages a general understanding of the key ideas from Western and Eastern schools of philosophy, the latest theories and trends in modern science, and a comparative study of the world's major religious traditions.

For more information regarding this presentation, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at 504-889-8143 or wcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.