Art Metropole

28 Jan. 2019

Announcing the Islands Summer-Fall 2019 Arts Writing Residency Recipient - Nora N. Khan

Fogo Island Arts and Art Metropole are pleased to announce that Nora N. Khan has been selected to participate in The Islands, a two-part residency that aims to encourage arts writing and criticism in contemporary art. Based in Rhode Island, where she is a faculty member at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Khan is a critic and writer on emerging issues within digital visual culture and the philosophy of emerging technology.

The Islands invites emerging and established arts writers and artists with a writing practice to think about the various roles of writing across two unique locations. The jury for this fourth edition of the program included Yaniya Lee, associate editor at Canadian Art; Alexandra McIntosh, Director of Programs and Exhibitions, Fogo Island Arts; artist Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn; Nicolaus Schafhausen, Director, Kunsthalle Wien and Strategic Director, Fogo Island Arts; and Jayne Wilkinson, Board of Directors, Art Metropole and Managing Editor, Canadian Art.

The jury was unanimous in its decision. “Nora Khan’s art and technology criticism is concerned with the ethical questions that mark our times,” said jury member Yaniya Lee. “Not only does she interpret forms and ideas, looking into artists’ practices and methodologies, she connects them to social and historical systems. Particularly, Khan provides insight into how technology, algorithms, and computational effects square up or disagree with humanism and ways of being human.”

Nora Khan will spend a month on Fogo Island as part of Fogo Island Arts’ residency program, followed by two weeks on Toronto Island at Artscape Gibraltar Point. The residency will culminate in a small publication published and distributed by Art Metropole.

Nora Khan’s research focuses on experimental art and music practices that make arguments through software. She specializes in simulation design, AI and intelligent systems, machine vision, automated language and poetry, and narrative design for interfaces across time, cultures and political contexts. In examining the cultural, aesthetic and psychological dimensions of technological tools and systems, she tries to map their grounding ideology. Khan is a long-time editor at Rhizome and is currently editing Prototype, a forthcoming book from Google’s Artist and Machine Intelligence group. Khan’s art and technology criticism has been published in 4Columns, Rhizome, Art in America, Flash Art, Mousse, California Sunday, Spike Art, The Village Voice, Glass Bead and many other places. She has contributed commissioned essays for exhibitions at Serpentine Galleries, Chisenhale Gallery, the Venice Biennale, and Kunstverein in Hamburg and in a number of artist’s books, including Sondra Perry’s Typhoon Coming On (Koenig), Katja Novitskova’s Dawn Mission (Mousse) and If Only You Could See What I See with Your Eyes*(Sternberg), and Ian Cheng’s Emissaries Guide to Worlding (Koenig). She is a member of the Digital + Media faculty at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

The Islands is a residency partnership conceived and organized by Art Metropole and Fogo Island Arts, with support from Artscape. The next iteration of The Islands will take place in 2020.

ABOUT FOGO ISLAND ARTS
Fogo Island Arts is a residency-based contemporary art venue that supports research and production of new work for artists, filmmakers, writers, musicians, curators, designers and thinkers from around the world. Since 2008, FIA has brought some of the most exciting, emerging and renowned artists of today to Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada to take part in residencies and to present solo exhibitions at the Fogo Island Gallery. FIA also presents programs in cities across Canada and abroad, including the Fogo Island Dialogues interdisciplinary conversation series, as part of its international outreach. Combining contemporary art, iconic architecture and social innovation in a singular setting, FIA is a world-class institution that is uniquely rooted in community. FIA is an initiative of Shorefast, a registered Canadian charity with the mission to build economic and cultural resilience on Fogo Island.

FIA Advisory Board members include Zita Cobb, Eleanor Dawson, Paul Dean, Fabrizio Gallanti, Elisa Nuyten, Silke Otto-Knapp, Willem de Rooij, Nicolaus Schafhausen, Kitty Scott and Monika Szewczyk.

ABOUT ART METROPOLE
Art Metropole is an artist-run centre with a focus on the production, dissemination and contextualization of artist-initiated publication in any media, especially those formats and practices predisposed to sharing and circulation. Art Metropole was founded in Toronto in 1974 by the artists’ group General Idea. Art Metropole is incorporated under the laws of the province of Ontario and a registered charitable organization.

ABOUT ARTSCAPE
Artscape is a not-for-profit urban development organization that makes space for creativity and transforms communities. Artscape Gibraltar Point is a secluded artist retreat nestled against the magnificent natural backdrop of Toronto Island, the largest urban car-free community in North America just a 10-minute ferry ride from downtown Toronto. Gibraltar Point hosts programmed artist residencies and provides studio rentals year-round and offers the opportunity to engage with the vibrant arts and events of the larger Artscape community.

Media Information:
Alexandra McIntosh
Director of Programs and Exhibitions, Fogo Island Arts
alexandramcintosh@fogoislandarts.ca +1 709-266-1248, ext. 4

Jayne Wilkinson
Board of Directors, Art Metropole
board@artmetropole.com +1 416 703 4400

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