Artist/scholar Sarah K. Khan, a two-time Fulbright recipient, creates multimedia content about food, culture, women, and migrants grounded in social justice. She is in post-production on an animated documentary about [Indian women farmers] with a brown shero narrator, Amrita Simla. The series intersects globalization, environmental degradation, gender, and race/caste discrimination in addition to the loss of biocultural, and culinary diversities. The first film in the series is entitled, [Bowing To No One]. She also creates global media content on [Migrant Kitchens] and relays the [stories of migrants], through the lens of food with photography, film, and data-driven maps.
Khan has built a solid body of multimedia work that focuses on women, migrants, biocultural and agricultural diversity and sustainability. Since 2013, she completed 14 short films, over 25 articles, and 13 data-driven maps as part of the Migrant Kitchen Series and people of color farmers’ series.
She earned a BA in Middle Eastern history and Arabic (Smith College), two Masters (public health and nutrition, Columbia University) and a Ph.D. (traditional ecological knowledge systems, plant sciences, New York Botanical Garden/CUNY). She has received grants and fellowships to pursue her study, research, photography and filmmaking.
Siddis in Karnataka
34" x 50" to 38" x 68"
Descended from early African immigrants to South Asia, the Siddis of Karnataka, India retained and transformed certain African traditions particularly in the patchwork quilts known as kawandi. Sarah Khan, along with The Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross (a social service ministry), has been working with Siddis and other marginalized groups in Karnataka to establish a Siddi Women’s Quilting Cooperative.
Featured in Loving Blackness
Cookbook of Gestures: Recipe for Gazelle Horns (Ka'ab Ghazal), 2018
HD Video w/ sound
5 mins
The Cookbook of Gestures series is a multimedia/multisensory homage to the embodied knowledge of women cooks and farmers.
Featured in Working Conditions
