e177 asma khan - unknownness as a playground for artists

conscient podcast

• We essentially know two percent of all different disciplines and that kind of unknownness creates a very free playground for an artist to dance in or to draw in because we know we're going through a massive crisis. The world is ending. We see chaos. We see all of that but my personal hope as an artist remains in how little we know and how little we understand about our own selves, forget the dying large world and huge cosmos outside of our world that we know so little about. So I feel like my work has always celebrated unknownness. Just because we don't know it doesn't mean it's not there.

I first met Asma Khan online, when she was an artist in residence and teacher at The Imaginarium a workshop run by the Wolf Willow Institute, which is a practice space for building our complexity muscles and aimed to bring what is known and unknown into a new inquiry, which is what much of Asma’s work is about.

I was mesmerized by Asma’s work at this workshop. It literally brought me into another world.

Asma is, among other things, a multidisciplinary artist working with painting, drawing, watercolors, collage, pen and ink, and digital drawing. Her practice explores complex natural systems, aiming to find spiritual symbology and feminine sensibility in phenomena like gravity, time-space, black holes, coral ecosystems, mycelium, and neural structures.

Motivated by the mysteries of the natural world, Asma combines rigorous research with intuitive drawing to reveal connections between micro and macro systems. Living between Montreal and Karachi, Asma is committed to cross-cultural and interdisciplinary engagement.

For example, her recent project, ‘Micro-frequencies for Prayer’, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, created a series of prayer rugs using microscopy data to represent overlooked objects in domestic environments, highlighting their unseen complexity.

During our conversation in her studio in Montreal, I asked Asma to describe some of her prayer rugs for me which I think you’ll enjoy. You can see one in the episode photo.

I also think you’ll enjoy the way she talks about time. It really stretched my mind.

• There is large time, which is the time of God, the time of black holes, the time of the cosmos, and there is the time of man, which is a very limited time. If we look at our own history, our earth has gone through many extinction events. When we go through, and it's not even a matter of if, but when we go through an extinction. I feel like it's a good thing once again for us to check our egos. The dinosaurs went through it and we're going to have to go through it too and many other life forms have gone through extinction. I don't personally see it as a sad event. I see it as a necessary event because it's small time. I feel like art is a vehicle that helps us get from small time to large time.

I also appreciated her comment about art in crisis, which is a topic I will explore in season 6 of this podcast:

• If we want to truly be informed from our safe spaces, we really have to focus on the art and science that's coming from places of great discomfort and shifts because they're seeing it before we're seeing it.

For further insight into her work, follow Khan's artistic journey on Instagram @asma.ahsan.khan.

Asma recommended the following book and film:

• The Most Unknown film
• Carlo Rovelli’s work, notably White Holes

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END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Hey conscient listeners,

Thanks for your presence. Season 5 of this podcast is now completed. I'll be back with season 6 on art and culture in times of crisis and collapse (see trailer for details) sometime in 2025.

Background on the conscient podcast

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). It’s my way to give back and be present.

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and it's francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I publish a Substack newsletter called ‘a calm presence' which are 'short, practical essays about collapse acceptance, adaptation, response and art’. To subscribe (free of charge) see https://acalmpresence.substack.com. You'll also find a podcast version of each a calm presence posting on Substack or one your favorite podcast player.

Also, please note that a complete transcript of most conscient podcast and balado conscient episodes from season 1 to 5 is available on the web version of this site (not available on podcast apps) here: https://conscient-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes.

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I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible.

Claude Schryer

Latest update on November 6, 2024