This series of nine diptych works on paper are based on a reframing of archaeological material from the vantage point of the Parsi queer diaspora. The process began with an exploration of archives—beginning from a broad range—that contained artifacts from Achaemenid Persia, particularly those which were excavated by European archaeological teams from the 19th and early-20th centuries. Most of these objects were taken to Europe and several are still at the Musée du Louvre in Paris; some are from the Oxus Treasure, which is a large finding of gold and precious metal-based Achaemenid findings, which are still at the British Museum; and a select few artifacts and architectural motifs cited in this series are from the National Museum of Iran (Tehran) and the present-day ruins of Persepolis (located in the Fars province of present-day Iran), which was destroyed by Alexander of Macedon in 330 BC.

Over the past seven years Katki has closely studied what remains of Achaemenid art: alongside these studies he has practiced the queer art of fabulation, through cues provided in elements of tangible narrative that are traceable in Zoroastrian decorative motifs, domestic and ceremonial artifacts, and the structural plans of Persepolis which has been repeatedly visited by him since his first field trip there in 2018.

The title Library suggests a clear link to the archive and its many iterations in a work with fragmented panes of color—each depicting still lives of chromatically reimagined material histories. On the top narrow panel there are three large rounded wine flagons dripping with nectar on the far left; beside it rests the infamous seal of Cyrus the Great—an imperial version of the Zoroastrian Faravahar symbol, here painted in layers of watery facture, almost morphing into an abstract vernacular that the artist verges on. The lower larger panel of the diptych depicts on the left an abstracted glimpse, based on a photograph of the Persepolitan archive (laid in ruins) taken by the artist in 2018; to the right are eight tablets inscribed with various orders, messages and laws from the time of Cyrus the Great—here only shown as sherds of clay laid in two rows, obfuscated by the pixilation of a pseudo-pointillist grid.