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Pay monthly: $7/month | Pay yearly: $70/year | Founding Member: >$70/year
What is this thing I signed up for?
What is crossed out below was gleefully aspirational, ha!
This newsletter is a series of lists, science infodumping (or everything infodumping), event announcements, bad jokes, and lore. I have tried for a few years to make this newsletter “thematic,” but I am not one to stay on topic, ever, and not sure why I tried to do this here. I love tangents, misdirections, and wanderings. Your girl has a lot of interests and never enough time. I won’t promise a focused approach, because I will only let you down! And I don’t want to do that to you! This newsletter is me yapping on a digital substrate.
Better than what you will get from this newsletter, I will take an apophasis approach. This newsletter is not:
Personal Confessional (Though I will share some things, I will save the confessions for Allah and the interior thoughts for those who have earned the trust.)
Artworld Gossip Column (I do not go outside. I do not like gossip. And I have no interest in doing anything but making my art, eating well, and communing with good people. I do not care. I do not want it. Leave me alone.)
Professional Advice (If you need consulting support, check out orangetangent.study — my little darling where I tinker. If you are a former student, just email me! Also, truly, what the heck do I know?)
Life Coach Adjacent (Like I said before, what do I know? And what do I look like coaching someone else on something Allah is coaching me in?)
Art Promotion (Look, I am terrible at telling people about my work. I feel a lot of shame and angst about attention. If anything, I will share afterward, and if I am particularly organized, a few hours before!)
But, girl? What is it that you do?
I explore the poetics and politics of non-compliance and disobedience across written, spoken, and visual language. In doing so, I consider the radical possibilities of noise, unintelligibility, discrepancy, and the refusal of frictionless datafication. I create language-saturated installations, film/video (poems?), handheld physical and digital text objects to be read, performance-adjacent improvisational artist talks, archival collections, scores/prompts for humans, software, esoteric fiction stories and loglines, (intergenerational) learning environments, curricular materials, stand-up comedy sets, wayward translations, (unrecorded) infodump lectures about special interests, devotional kits, walking paths, theremin sound works, and photographs.
What is KJR Studios?
KJR Studios is a sprawling creative practice headquartered in Brooklyn, NY, with seasonal projects in Berlin, Johannesburg, and wherever else I am invited (hint hint: I would love to spend some time in Brazil, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Tokyo). Stewarded by me, learner Kameelah Janan Rasheed, KJR Studios is committed to exploring how we learn across species, disciplines, and states of living.
Learn more about KJR Studios here.
How is this newsletter organized?
I wonder how many changes readers will tolerate. I hope you’ll stick with me as I try to find a more sustainable rhythm.
a. 🕸️ Primitive Hypertext (after Octavia Estelle Butler)
Mondays: This is done in the same spirit — a list of five things I’ve read/seen/heard and want to share. I decided to switch the format to mirror Harper’s Findings.
b. ✍🏽 1,000 Words
Tuesdays: I am pushing myself to write 1,000 words a day. I will share some of it every month or so.
c. 🖼️ KJR Studios Updates
Wednesdays: Reminders about exhibitions, publications, and classes.
d. 🧕🏾 Jumu'ah Series
Fridays: I am unable to attend Jumu'ah, so instead of physically gathering, I will share a newsletter each Friday detailing a practice of gathering that does not include physical congregation. Read the full explanation here.
e. 👾 The Greedy Goblins
Second + Fourth Saturday of Each Month: Sometimes, I am completely overwhelmed with how to start a sentence when a bunch of greedy goblins (tangential thoughts) are volleying for my attention. I am returning to the list form to relieve myself of the pressure of narrativizing or “making a point.” And speaking of my tangent goblins — creatures that I picture as purple blobs with octopus-like suction cups covering their bodies and puppy dog eyes that weaken my resolve — here come two others:
I am reminded ofThe Odd Years, a book of to-lists Morgan Bassichis created every Monday in 2017 and 2019. From their2021 special edition— “— REPRISE MY ROLE AS FAMILY KILLJOY”. I am thinking about Hsu Hsu’s 2020 New Yorker essay,My Year of Making Listswhich connects the trauma of COVID to the illusory sense of control that a list implies. In addition to this angle, I was drawn to this:
and
I make lists because I have poor sensory gating which means I am often taking in a lot of stimuli and I need to place it … somewhere. There is also something about what Hsu Hsu calls “a desire to displace anxious energy into a nerdish ritual.”
How to cite this newsletter: Rasheed, K. (Year, Month Day). Newsletter Title. I Will (?) Figure This All Out Later. URL