Asma Khan – Organ Clock: A Mark-making Workshop Exploring Temporal Imagination

Organ Clock is a guided mark-making practice that explores the intelligences of micro time systems in order to visualize macro time. As time shifts, our states shift. In this exercise, we draw our change by state as our attention is brought to smaller pockets of time. Kairos time is an ancient Greek concept that speaks to the opportune moment for action—felt, sensed, and timely—contrasting with Chronos time, which is measured in fixed units like seconds and minutes. While Chronos is linear and quantitative, Kairos invites us into the textured, qualitative dimensions of time—those potent intervals where transformation becomes possible.

This arts-based workshop invites participants to reimagine their relationship with time through the lens of embodied attention. As we move toward systems change and more sustainable forms of living and relating, it becomes vital to consider how our current chrononormative frameworks may be depleting us. Through a guided process, we will explore how attuning to layered, biological, and cyclical rhythms can open space for personal and collective transformation aligned with ecological time.

This exercise informs and guides us through our ecological climate clock, inviting us to notice how shifts in micro time mirror the
urgencies of planetary time. By shifting from Chronos to Kairos time systems, we can come closer to an understanding of biological time keeping.

About the speaker

Asma Khan is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose practice spans art, science, and systems design. Living between Montreal and Karachi, Khan draws from diverse sociocultural contexts to explore how creative methodologies can help individuals and communities navigate complexity. After completing a bachelor's degree in Philosophy, she pursued a BFA in Pakistan and later studied Digital Technologies in Design Art at Concordia University after moving to Montreal in 2001.

Over the past 12 years, Khan has independently researched quantum physics, which led to a two-year exploration of time as a system through painting and interdisciplinary study. Her current work focuses on visualizing and conceptualizing black holes through artistic inquiry.

Her practice engages medical professionals, systems leaders, and disability advocates, including contributions to The Aga Khan Hospital and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s global Collective Imagination Practice Toolkit. A former Artist-in-Residence at the Wolf Willow Institute, Khan’s research-creation projects include embroidered prayer rugs inspired by microscopic views of domestic matter. She also works at The Alinker, amplifying disabled voices, and involved in developing participatory toolkits that bridge artistic inquiry, disability awareness, and social transformation.

https://www.akhanstudio.com/
https://www.instagram.com/asma.ahsan.khan/

While this event is free, please consider a small donation to Concordia's Arts in Health Centre which is hosting the event! Our student creative arts therapists provide free therapy to the greater Montreal community through our donor funded clinic and community partnerships. https://engage.concordia.ca/donate/faculty-of-fine-arts/concordia-arts-in-health-centre.

If you would like to attend other free events in C-Change : Creative Systems Change & Collective Climate Action | Changements systémiques créatifs et action climatique collective Hosted by the Concordia Arts in Health Centre, part of the department of Creative Arts Therapies

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