Baseera Khan

Nike ID #1, 2018

Nike Air Force One mid-tops, acrylic glass boxes, books, dimensions variable

Purple Heart, 2017
I AM A BODY, 2018
iamuslima, 2018

Handmade wool rugs, each 121.92 x 76.20 cm

Baseera Khan’s ongoing project iamuslima takes its name from the slogan the artist had embroidered on a pair of sneakers through the NIKE ID (now Nike By You) customization program. Up until 2016, the terms “Muslim” and “Islam” were censored by the sportswear maker’s online personalization platform. Khan got around the restrictions by choosing a slightly altered spelling that is also a feminization of the phrase. Since these guidelines were publicly criticized, the Nike Corporation endured a boycott and a major lawsuit that were presumably the reason the company adjusted its filters and even launched a line of sports hijabs for Muslim female athletes in 2017. While this corrected Nike’s image to great media fanfare, the U.S. government continues to impose travel bans on Muslim countries. Khan takes this ambivalence and lack of sensitivity as their starting point. Their work addresses how policies can other and separate people, and creates conflicts within one’s personal identity and sense of safety. The designs for their psychedelic prayer rugs titled Purple Heart, iamuslima, and I AM A BODY are also based on Khan’s examination of the question of how capitalist power structures are inscribed into fashion, culture, religion, and individual bodies. The prayer rugs, designed by the artist and crafted by traditional prayer rug makers in Kashmir, India, point toward the northeast. Instead of employing the standard motifs, the artist uses a personal iconography referencing protest posters and current events to complicate religious power relations.