Kameelah Janan Rasheed Explained

Kameelah Janan Rasheed
Birth Place:East Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Alma Mater:Pomona College
Stanford University (EdM)
Notable Works:How to Suffer Politely (And Other Etiquette), No Instructions for Assembly
Known For:Contemporary Art, Writing, Education

Kameelah Janan Rasheed (born 1985) is an American writer, educator, and artist from East Palo Alto, California.[1] [2] She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts known for her work in installations, book arts, immersive text-based installations, large-scale public text pieces, publications, collage, and audio recordings.[3] Rasheed's art explores memory, ritual, discursive regimes, historiography, and archival practices through the use of fragments and historical residue.[4] Based in Brooklyn, NY, she is currently the Arts Editor for SPOOK magazine. In 2021 her work was featured in an Art 21 (New York Close Up) documentary, "The Edge of Legibility."

Background

Early life

Born in East Palo Alto, California to Sunni Muslim parents,[5] Rasheed characterizes herself as "a Muslim kid enrolled at a Catholic school and attended Mormon school dances, who went to shabbat dinners and attended Sunday church services with friends." When Rasheed was twelve years old, her family was unlawfully evicted from their home due to the sharp increase of land value in northern California near East Palo Alto,[6] and entered a period of homelessness that lasted for the next ten years. The experience of moving through temporary homes with her family led to an interest in the practice of collecting and archiving to cope with her forced displacement.[7]

Rasheed attended Pomona College for her undergraduate degree, studying public policy and Africana.[8] She traces her interest in visual art to class on black aesthetics and the politics of representation taken in her penultimate semester at Pomona. She was awarded an Amy Biehl Fulbright Scholarship to study in South Africa. Returning to the U.S., she completed a graduate degree in secondary education from Stanford University. Early in her career, Rasheed taught social studies from the elementary school to high school level. Her background in history and pedagogy influences her artistic practice.

Visual art

Rasheed came to photography and collaging while living and studying in South Africa as an exchange student, and later as a Fulbright Scholar, where she discovered an interest in the act of documentation and interviewing. The first iteration of her immersive installation, No Instructions for Assembly, Activation I (2013), took place at Real Art Ways and consisted of over six hundred objects, including found and personal family photos, album covers, tufts of family members' hair, Islamic prayer rugs, newspaper clippings, jewelry, prayer beads, black stockings, and mirrors, among other items. Subsequent iterations of the installation have invited audiences to modify and contribute their own objects and histories to her growing archive.[9]

Themes

The major themes of Rasheed's work revolve around conflicting histories, visual culture, being black in America, unearthing buried narratives, and the complexity of memory. Her art engages with her background in history and education, turning exhibitions into pedagogical experiences and opportunities to explore archives, our personal relationship with history, and public spaces.

Rasheed's art has used distinctive signs with large, capitalized font in public spaces arranged in series or a grid. For instance, How to Suffer Politely (And Other Etiquette) is a series of billboard-size yellow posters with all-black font announcing slogans like "LOWER THE PITCH OF YOUR SUFFERING" or "TELL YOUR STRUGGLE WITH TRIUMPHANT HUMOR". The work engages with the Black Lives Matter movement, noting how people were told not to react with anger to police killing people of color in America, but also with etiquette guides from the 1800s. Similarly, Art After Trump is a political abecedarius with all-capitalized lines spelling out phrases like "SUPERLATIVE SUBJUGATION" and "PIGMENTED PRIVILEGE".[10]

Education

Rasheed holds an M.A. in Secondary Education from Stanford University and received a B.A. in 2006 from Pomona College in Public Policy and Africana Studies.[11]

Awards and fellowships

Rasheed has been the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships, and residencies, including:[12]

2022

2021

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2006

2005

Published Writing

As a writer, Rasheed has published an array of essays and interviews, including:[12]

Selected exhibitions

Kameelah Janan Rasheed's work has been featured in exhibitions at galleries and institutions including solo shows at:

Rasheed's work, Tell Your Struggle with Triumphant Humor, 2014 is included in the Exhibition For Freedoms, conceived as an artist-run super PAC,[15] which is inspired by inspired by a speech by Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 Four Freedoms speech.[16] [17]

For Whisper or Shout: Artists in the Social Sphere, at BRIC House in Brooklyn in 2016, Rasheed showed a reconstruction of a childhood living room as part of the ongoing project her ongoing project No Instructions for Assembly.[18] [19]

References

[20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34]

External links

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Notes and References

  1. News: Kameelah Janan Rasheed. 2016. 2017-03-10. en-US.
  2. News: Muslim Artist Denied Flight by US Airport Security - artnet News. 2015-11-26. artnet News. 2017-03-10. en-US.
  3. Web site: Statement - Kameelah Janan Rasheed. www.kameelahr.com. en. 2017-03-12.
  4. News: Kameelah Janan Rasheed - Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. 2017-03-12. en-US.
  5. News: Kameelah Janan Rasheed Explores Her Curiosities Through The Visual Arts. Gore. Sydney. 2016-02-21. Nylon. 2017-03-12. en.
  6. Web site: The Archives of Kameelah Rasheed. Art21 Magazine. 15 April 2015 . 2017-03-12.
  7. Web site: Artist Interview: Kameelah Janan Rasheed of Everything is Index, Nothing is History Recession Art. recessionartshows.com. en-US. 2017-03-12.
  8. Web site: Kameelah Rasheed: Who Will Survive in America?. Roach. Imani. 2017-03-06. Guernica Magazine. 2018-03-15.
  9. Web site: Kameelah Rasheed - No Instructions for Assembly, Activation VII . Vox Populi . July 6, 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160412162820/https://voxpopuligallery.org/exhibitions/kameelah-rasheed/ . April 12, 2016.
  10. News: Art After Trump: An Alphabetical Arrangement. 2016-12-23. Hyperallergic. 2018-03-16. en-US.
  11. Web site: Kameelah Janan Rasheed. March 2016 . Smack Mellon. 8 March 2017.
  12. Web site: CV - Kameelah Janan Rasheed. www.kameelahr.com. en. 2017-03-12.
  13. Web site: Open Studio with BxMA Co-Lab Dance Resident Jasmine Hearn and Visual Artist Kameelah Rasheed - Event - The Bronx Museum of the Arts. The Bronx Museum of the Arts. 2017-03-12.
  14. Web site: Rodney. Seph. A Black American Artist Explores Her Refusal of Christianity. Hyperallergic. 18 May 2016 . Hyperallergic Media Inc.. 8 March 2017.
  15. News: Can an Artist-Run Super PAC Be More Than a Gimmick?. Kaplan. Isaac. 2016-06-09. Artsy. 2017-03-08.
  16. Web site: Unconventional Super PAC Mixes Art and Politics. 2016-07-15. WNYC.
  17. Web site: Exhibition. For Freedoms. en-US. 2017-03-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20170312044514/http://www.forfreedoms.org/exhibition/. 2017-03-12. dead.
  18. News: Galleries Scramble Amid Brooklyn's Gentrification. Cotter. Holland. 2016-04-21. The New York Times. 2017-03-08. 0362-4331.
  19. Web site: BRIC announces "Whisper or Shout" Exhibition. 16 February 2016. BRIC. en. 9 March 2017.
  20. Web site: Enter an Immersive Environment Crafted out of Black History - Creators. Creators. en-us. 2017-03-08.
  21. News: 10 Black Artists to Watch in 2016 - artnet News. 2016-02-13. artnet News. 2017-03-08. en-US.
  22. News: At the Studio Museum in Harlem, 4 Shows Engage a Cultural Conversation. Schwendener. Martha. 2016-01-07. The New York Times. 2017-03-08. 0362-4331.
  23. News: 20 Emerging Female Artists -artnet News. 2015-12-09. artnet News. 2017-03-08. en-US.
  24. News: Art of work: Exhibit tackles income inequality. Brooklyn Paper. 2017-03-08. en.
  25. Web site: New Park Slope art exhibit explores income inequality Brooklyn Daily Eagle. www.brooklyneagle.com. 14 August 2015 . 2017-03-08.
  26. News: Nonprofit group fills empty New York spaces with art. Ilnytzky. Ula. 2015-08-21. Christian Science Monitor. 2017-03-08. 0882-7729.
  27. Web site: Articles ArtSlant. www.artslant.com. 2017-03-08.
  28. News: Kameelah Janan Rasheed: 5 Must-Read Interviews With Young Black Writers. Clutch Magazine. 2017-03-08. en-US.
  29. Web site: Articles ArtSlant. www.artslant.com. 2017-03-08.
  30. News: If You Build It in Harlem. 2014-07-30. Hyperallergic. 2017-03-08. en-US.
  31. News: 'If You Build It,' a Local Show Celebrating Local Art. Cotter. Holland. 2014-07-10. The New York Times. 2017-03-08. 0362-4331.
  32. Web site: art:i:curate // "If you build it" celebrates Harlem Art and Community. www.articurate.net. en-US. 2017-03-08.
  33. News: No Longer Empty's 'If You Build It' Opens at Harlem's Sugar Hill. Dawson. Jessica. 2014-06-25. Wall Street Journal. 2017-03-08. 0099-9660.
  34. Web site: Other Histories: An Interview with Kameelah Janan Rasheed « Paper Journal. paper-journal.com. 20 June 2013 . 2017-03-08.

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