shama.khanna@flatness.eu / @shama_khanna / @flatness.eu /
they/ them
Shama Khanna is an independent curator, writer, educator and grower from London. They are the founder of Flatness (http://flatness.eu), a long-running online platform for artists’ moving image and network cultures of the screen and the land invested in curating through a queer decolonial lens. Find out more about the project here and in our book Queer Diasporic Futurity.
As well as with the artists featured on Flatness, Khanna has collaborated with numerous publications and organisations including: documenta 14, Athens; NANG, Seoul; Moderna Museet, Malmö; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Western Front, Vancouver; Microscope, NYC; LIMA, Amsterdam; Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem; Brent Biennial 2022; Art Monthly; Afterall; LUX Scotland; Jerwood Arts; Herbert Gallery; Camden Arts Centre; The Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths; Feminist Review Journal; Chisenhale Gallery; Syllabus; and CCA, Glasgow (all UK). They have held teaching positions at Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths University of London and University of the Arts.
Queer Diasporic Futurity (QDF) edited by Flatness and developed in partnership with not/nowhere artist workers’ cooperative and researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University was published in July 2022. QDF explores the redistribution of power, intersectional resistance/healing, and new ways of working: IRL and in print. Khanna continued many of the concerns of QDF into their curation of Brent Biennial’s public programme in 2022. Awarded the Oasis residency at Forma and Peveril Gardens during 2022-23, Flatness invested in and grew seeds of connection and community with residents in the adjoining estate, local schools, libraries and other public service users. Khanna is Chair of the advisory Board for not/nowhere. From October 2023 they are working towards a doctoral award in Fine Art at Kingston University in collaboration with the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.
Selected writing and projects:
Public Programme for Brent Biennial 2022.
Oasis at Forma 2023.
Flatness Interview for Spike Art Magazine.
Non-linear screening series.
Frida Orupabo exhibition review for Afterall.
Dennis Cooper film review for The White Review.
Vulnerability with Attitude (Overdue Dues) on the work of Hannah Catherine Jones.
Interview with Danielle Brathwaite Shirley published open source in Feminist Review.
Images above show documentation from Flatness’s Oasis Residency at Forma HQ and Peveril Gardens 2022-23. Photo by Carolina Ongaro. Designs by Design Print Bind.
