The Forum 22 | Baseera Khan

Baseera Khan joins Ajay Kurian for a conversation that begins with a Garfield drawing contest and expands into an exploration of storytelling, identity, and the politics of material.Khan reflects on finding her artistic voice through tracing comics, navigating graduate school as a search for self rather than an entry into the art world, and developing works that blend performance, sculpture, painting, and sound. Together, they discuss Braid Rage, acoustic blankets, museums, language, surveillance, and the hidden histories embedded in everyday materials.Throughout the conversation, Khan shares how dreams, humor, intuition, and personal experience shape a practice that resists fixed definitions while examining capitalism, representation, and belonging.About the GuestBaseera Khan is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores identity, labor, material culture, and systems of power through sculpture, painting, performance, installation, and sound. Their work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and Participant Inc., and they were the winner of The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist.https://baseerakhan.com/00:00 Intro00:20 Garfield, Nermal & learning to draw through comics05:20 Finding an artistic path through Cornell and self-discovery12:20 Storytelling, language, and the influence of Michael Asher18:50 Braid Rage, dreams, and making work without sketches26:50 Fabric, family, and the materials of memory29:50 The “I AM MUSLIMA” Nike project, identity, and capitalism34:45 Performance, acoustic blankets, and surveillance42:30 Petroleum, plastic, and giving museum objects a voice50:50 Working with museum archives and historical collections54:20 Reality television, identity, and staying grounded1:00:30 Art, ambition, and closing thoughts00:00:00 Ajay Kurian : Welcome to the forum from the new podcast. I’m your host, Ajay Kurian. The forum is a free monthly gathering in New York where artists and thinkers come together for a live conversation. Well, you’re about to hear was recorded in front of a live audience. For details on upcoming events, sign up for our newsletter at new dot studio.00:00:19 Ajay Kurian : I was really tickled by this like, fact that I learned about Baseera literally just a few days ago, and just a few minutes ago, I had this idea. Um, so we’ll see how it goes. But basically we both got into art. Art meaning like drawing of any kind image making, um, through Garfield. And I didn’t know this until a few days ago.00:00:47 Baseera Khan: So do you guys know who Garfield is?00:00:50 Ajay Kurian : Yes. Okay.00:00:52 Baseera Khan: Do you know who Nermal is? Of course you don’t. Because that was the femme cat behind Garfield.00:01:02 Ajay Kurian : It’s true. What I wanted to see if Baseera would be down to do is if we did a little Garfield drawing contest right now.00:01:12 Ajay Kurian : Do you guys.00:01:13 Baseera Khan: Like that idea?00:01:14 Ajay Kurian : Yes.00:01:15 Baseera Khan: I haven’t thought about Garfield in a very long time. And I have to also tell you the reason why. The reason why I started drawing Garfield was not because I innately was interested in like, Garfield and drawing. It was that I was interested in the stories and the storytelling. And, um, my brother would always run to the library and rent all of the books. And he was in his phase where he didn’t want to share. I mean, he’s a very generous human.00:01:49 Ajay Kurian : Is he older or younger?00:01:50 Baseera Khan: Two years older.00:01:51 Ajay Kurian : Okay. Okay. So it’s close.00:01:53 Baseera Khan: He’s a generous human. You know, I know I’m being recorded. Love you. William. But at the time, he was going through a phase where he wanted everything to himself. So I would sneak the books out of his bag and I would trace them. I would trace the drawings and make my own books. And I think through tracing the books, I started creating my own version of the cat. So just my pardon. If the cat looks like other things.00:02:24 Ajay Kurian : That’s totally fine. This is all in good fun. Um, and I also, it’s again, like, it’s just crazy to hear that that’s also how you came to it because weirdly, there’s ideas of familial surveillance. There’s ideas of like having to take a story and make it yours because it wasn’t being offered to you in the first place. There’s just like strange dynamics that feel like there’s parallels in the work itself.00:02:52 Baseera Khan: One more thing before we st