Nasreen Khan in Residence March 2024

We are pleased to announce Nasreen Khan as our March 2024 Speculative Play and Just Futurities resident scholar.  

While in residence, Khan will research khaal—the traditional facial tattoos of women in Afghanistan. Nasreen will conduct firsthand interviews with Afghan women, engage in scholarly research, and create original artwork. Drawing from social media microfiction and the Afghan female poetry form landays, she intends to create at least five visual and narrative social media posts a week during her residency. These posts will include futuristic microfiction narratives that are based on Afghan bodywork research and the modification of her own art with AI tools.  

About Nasreen Khan

Nasreen Khan (she/her) is a diasporic creative and scholar who is of mixed Filipino and Afghan heritage. She grew up in Senegal and Indonesia, and has recently made a home in Indianapolis. Her teaching and artistic practices are rooted in questions of equity and earth-based spirituality. Her work celebrates cultural margins and confronts colonization, racism, and misogyny. In this past year, she was a member of the Looking Glass Alliance—a group of community voices who worked to diversify the perspectives in the IMA American galleries. She also mounted her first solo show, Cic·a·trix, that focused on maternal scarring, and she serves as the Art Editor for the Indianapolis Review. 

Speculative Play and Just Futurities is made possible through the generous support of the Mellon Foundation. SPJF is a collaboration between the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, the Center for Africana Studies and Culture, and the Ray Bradbury Center. Learn more about the program here.