Common Ground

Project X Foundation for Art and Criticism: Nora Khan

Featuring Khan and Cole Swensen

 

1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific

Writer and critic Nora Khan joins poet Cole Swensen for a conversation. We conclude with a poetry reading by Ama Birch.

In this talk

More on Project X Foundation for Art and Criticism →

Nora N. Khan

Photo of Nora N. Khan in front of a flower background
Credit to Natalia Mantini
Curator, editor, and writer Nora N. Khan focuses on criticism on digital visual culture, the politics of software, and philosophy of emerging technology. She is the Executive Director of Project X for Art and Criticism, publishing X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal in Los Angeles. She is also a Curator for the next Biennale de L’Image en Mouvement in 2023, hosted by Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève. Khan’s most recent short book is Seeing, Naming, Knowing (Brooklyn Rail), on the logic of machine vision. She frequently writes for publications like Artforum and Art in America, and has written commissioned essays for major exhibitions. Her writing has been honored by a Critical Writing Grant and a Thoma Foundation Arts Writing Award in Digital Art.

Cole Swensen

A black and white photo of poet Cole Swensen.
Photo by Anthony Hayward
Poet Cole Swensen is the author of 17 volumes of poetry and a collection of critical essays, Noise That Stays Noise. A book of hybrid poem-essays, Art in Time, was published by Nightboat in 2021. A former Guggenheim Fellow, she has been a finalist for the National Book Award and has been awarded the Iowa Poetry Prize, the SF State Poetry Center Book Award, and the National Poetry Series. She has also translated over 20 volumes of poetry, prose, and art criticism from French and won the 2004 PEN USA Award in Literary Translation.

The Rail has a tradition of ending our conversations with a poetry reading, and we’re fortunate to have Ama Birch reading.

Ama Birch

A photograph of poet Ama Birch in front of a multi-colored wall.
Calvin Lee
Poet Ama Birch has been published by Grove Atlantic, Great Weather for Media, Autonomedia, A Gathering of the Tribes, Vail/Vale, Vitrine, Insert Blanc Press, Live Mag!, Fellswoop, Apricity, Belladonna*, and The Brooklyn Rail. She did a residency at the Atlantic Center of the Arts.

❤️ 🌈 We'd like to thank the The Terra Foundation for American Art for making these daily conversations possible, and for their support of our growing archive.