YDF25 Artist 08 Q&A: Basit Khan

What’s your background?

I am a second-generation immigrant of the Kashmiri diaspora, born and raised working-class in the Muslim community of Bury.

Who are your biggest influences? Artistically? Who inspired you to become an artist?

My dad primarily, he is an author specialising in writing about Sufi practise and the spiritual path. He secured a PhD after a 20 year stint in the textile mills. Where I really come from, the culture is held in the way we tell stories, it feels like a Northern thing too so there’s no better place to marry these ideas than where I’m from. I’m also heavily inspired by Riz Ahmed and the themes he tackles, one of the first people to prove there was a lane for us creatively. I also owe a lot to Tommy Ryoma Hannaway from Bury and his creative excellence, showing me this was a viable path and that the natural resistance would only fuel my venture and for him I am forever grateful.

How have you developed your career? (From student to artist)

My parents always wanted me to get a medical doctorate so I never pursued the arts until I got to University. I did a year of Film Studies at MMU, I didn’t believe it would help me secure a job doing what I loved, which is film, so I decided to work full-time and try a different angle. I was supported majorly by schemes like The Met’s No Barriers and HOME’s Young Film Collective giving me learning opportunities, vital support systems and funding opportunities to follow my aspiration, these opportunities were instrumental in making it to this point. Alongside my full-time work at Currys, I wrote scripts, filmed pieces with friends and family; bought and used my own equipment and was self taught on the avenues of DIY film-making.

Describe a real-life situation that inspired you?

Seeing my 7 year old niece communicate in a way I had never experienced before and feeling healed by the process. She told me she felt lonely and wanted attention. I couldn’t communicate like that, I have family members in their 80’s that can’t communicate like that but all it took was reinforcing that it was okay to be vulnerable and honest. The hardest things to do. Seeing that the possibility for the generational trauma to be lifted was open, to create a more inspired, creative, secure generation of diaspora was life-changing to me. I knew then, I’d be making art for generations like this and we would be healing together, the two-way street i’ve wanting to walk since I learned of it.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

I visited Pakistan recently after a decade. My dad insisted I travel to Peshawar to meet a saint called Shah Sahib. Initially reluctant, we travelled the nine hours there and within ten minutes of arriving, he sat me down and asked me what are your thorns? I told them I wanted to be more sincere, in every aspect I could be. They told me the answer was simple, the answer was simplicity. This hit me like a truck. The stories of my heritage didn’t have to be exclusionary, I could distil and simplify the pangs of the spiritual crisis to be universally human. Human stories and experiences are how we heal and move forward together. That advice changed my life, not just in terms of art but in every way conceivable.

University - Do you need to have been to uni to make it as an artist?

Absolutely not! I only did a year of Film Studies before realising I didn’t have the privilege of the time, a feeling of urgency gripped me and I couldn’t justify the doctorate to myself. I decided instead to work and save, looking for other pathways, opportunities and if I was nifty enough, create my own. Initiative seemed to be my biggest hand, going out there and being proactive without expecting the institutions to bend my way. The best way to approach this was not as a cynic but to see structures as tools to be utilised by the artist to reach the desired output and knowing what that direction is- for me it’s always been my community.

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