List Dump: 28 June 2026
just a list of things I want to share in no order other than the sequence of remembering
Bismillah. We begin everything with the name of Allah. We recite Bismillah to initiate an act, acknowledging the intention and ethics that follow.
Words (not including the ones describing the words I am typing to tell you about the word count; also, in the search for the word for a sentence that describes itself, (which I am not doing), I came across autological words - I like to call them ouroboros words!):
3,506
This is just a list of things I wanted to share. If I took the time to organize it into a narrative, this newsletter would never come up. And no, I didn’t reread for edits; a cursory glance would quickly turn into a week-long rewriting, and seriously, ain’t nobody got time for that.
You should come to my talk on noise 🗓️ July 1, 2026, 6–8 pm |📍National Academy of Design
A lecture-performance on the generative and radical potential of noise with Kameelah Janan Rasheed.In Praise of Noise is an emergent lecture-performance exploring the generative and radical potential of noise. As we listen for what exceeds the signal — what escapes intelligibility and standard perception — we look to instances presumed to be failures: latency, misalignment, and ectopia. In this turn toward error as method, noise becomes an invitation to other ways of knowing. Resisting the temptation to worship at the altar of coherence and immediacy, we consider strategies of being out of sync, non-compliant, and excessive. These modes of being are not episodic spectacles of refusal; rather, they are disorienting conditions sustained not through cohesion, but through dispersal.Shoutout to the lady I ran into in North Carolina who told me she was a reader and felt abandoned by my absence. I am popping back in. I hope you are still a subscriber because I said, “I got you” in early April, and here we are two months later. Also, looks like I have been away so long that Substack introduced new features, lol.
Officially, this is a list newsletter. Does anyone remember the name of that book about the history of lists? Please let me know! Or maybe do not let me know? I keep starting new books. See #ah.
I am being terrorized by a tiny gray mouse. Somehow, he breached the hermetically sealed boundary of my sanctuary. He doesn’t want anything other than to live rent-free in my house. He can stay if he kicks in some coins. Many moons ago, in a different apartment, but the same building, there was a mouse. He ate all my organic goji berries, my organic lentils, and the artisanal chocolate I’d brought back from the south of France. It was then that I learned the mice here are built differently. They like AC, organic food, and access to international treats. Even more moons ago, in a different apartment in a different building, I came home to find two mice frolicking in my bed. I wondered how often you convene when I am not home. I washed and wiped everything down. Set out traps. I go to bed, and I hear a scratching. This mofo is hanging out on my nightstand. I moved out 10 days later. However, I am in a rent-stabilized apartment (that is going to stay that way, thanks to Mamdani!) and there is no way I am leaving. Mr. Mouse and I are gonna have to get along and set up opposite hours or something.
This year is kicking my butt. As I type this, it, like this mouse, is terrorizing me, gleefully. There is no good place to start to unfold the last nine months, but at the very least, the compliment I keep receiving is “wow, you are handling this very well.” What a pleasure to be crowned the most graceful and quiet sufferer! I will make myself a sash. I am thinking about my series How to Suffer Politely (and Other Etiquette). I am also thinking about Sadiyah Bashir’s latest essay, I Want to Be Remembered as Someone to Complain A lot. I try not to complain because I do not want to be ungrateful, but the contours of what I am calling ungratefulness are just me expressing displeasure. Why I have convinced myself that I cannot drop the mask and say, “this is rough,” is a complicated response, inflected by decades of being the “strong one,” serving as the understudy for the role of the most smiley, stressed-out person.
Some very strange and unfortunate things have happened this year, so if you want to drop a coin, please do!
• Venmo: @Kameelah-Rasheed
• Cash App: $kr00January - late March, I don’t even remember what happened. But here are some photos. Together, let’s try to reconstruct that month.
Actually, in January, I opened a solo show of some of my video works at High Line Art. Here is a photo of me before the artist talk in February. The boots and the jacket were thrifted in Berlin back in 2024.
And me hugging a former Cooper student before the talk. Shout out to all my students — y'all really be showing up to my events, and it is so lovely.
Artist talk with Kameelah Janan Rasheed and Taylor Zakarin, presented as part of Kameelah Janan Rasheed (2026), a High Line Channel exhibition. February 11, 2026. Photo by Liz Devine. Courtesy of the High Line. and eyes closed, just a yapping
Artist talk with Kameelah Janan Rasheed and Taylor Zakarin, presented as part of Kameelah Janan Rasheed (2026), a High Line Channel exhibition. February 11, 2026. Photo by Liz Devine. Courtesy of the High Line. 
Artist talk with Kameelah Janan Rasheed and Taylor Zakarin, presented as part of Kameelah Janan Rasheed (2026), a High Line Channel exhibition. February 11, 2026. Photo by Liz Devine. Courtesy of the High Line. Also, me in front of my work.
Artist talk with Kameelah Janan Rasheed and Taylor Zakarin, presented as part of Kameelah Janan Rasheed (2026), a High Line Channel exhibition. February 11, 2026. Photo by Liz Devine. Courtesy of the High Line. Oh, and in February, I cut my hair. Guys, it is not cute, and I am fighting the urge to chop it all off, but alhamdulillah for a hijab, so only I have to witness this awkward cut. But even I am embarrassed by myself. A mess, a complete mess. Someone told me not to do it, but I did it anyway, and did it poorly, ha!
I taught a fun workshop at the Free Black Women’s Library on Valentine’s Day. Thank you, Ola, for the invitation! I want to do more of these! See #g.
In April, I opened my installation Escape Orbit at the Greater New York group show at PS1. Double carpal tunnel syndrome, a baker’s cyst, and some gray hairs later, we have five new video works, some baby paintings, and the log lines for a film or maybe short story I promised myself I would write, but will most likely bask in the spirit of Jorge Luis Borges, who wrote:
“Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary.”I really like this “procedure,” but I am going to work on this amorphous piece of writing as soon as I get to Montpellier to teach for the 5th (6th?) year in a row in the Bennington MFA Low Residency program that hosts two months of study in Montpellier, France. Truly, a dream position. To be honest, April was a literal blur. I just remember going to the opening, and then it was May.
Some photos from the installation:
Kameelah Janan Rasheed. Escape Orbit. 2026 Installation with videos (black and white, sound) and works on paper Dimensions variable. Installation view of Greater New York, on view at MoMA PS1 from April 16 through August 17, 2026. Courtesy MoMA PS1. Photo: Kris Graves 
Kameelah Janan Rasheed. Escape Orbit. 2026 Installation with videos (black and white, sound) and works on paper Dimensions variable. Installation view of Greater New York, on view at MoMA PS1 from April 16 through August 17, 2026. Courtesy MoMA PS1. Photo: Kris Graves 
In April, I also closed a really transformative solo exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, WA.
[Installation view, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle. 2025]. Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit. 
[Installation view, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle. 2025]. Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit. May was a cute month. I spent a week in the Toronto neighborhood of Scarborough at the Black Studies Conference. I do not have a PhD, nor am I pursuing one, so it was quite an honor to be invited to a conference for scholars. I presented some emergent research on digital capture, necropolitics, and generative AI death bots. I met a lot of lovely people, fell in love with Toronto, and was almost persuaded to pursue a PhD program. It was my first time back after 20 years of sleeping in a dorm.
Earlier in May, I facilitated a reading room at the Black Zine Fair with my mama. A bunch of my grad students were there and got to meet my mom. It was a soft launch for an archival platform that’ll be peaking its head out soon, inshaAllah. It was very silly to simultaneously build nine websites, but who am I if not advantageous and slightly delusional about how time works? Here’s a cute video of me being cute, but also explaining the project, which is the more important feature.
In mid-May, I delivered a commencement address to BFA Photography students at the New School. I think this is the second commencement ceremony address I have delivered. They are a lot of fun, and I am appreciative of students who continue to recommend me such an honor.
In May, my longtime co-conspirator (Yuchen Chang) and I debuted our performance, Call Me by Your Practice: A Cross-Examination, at MoMA PS1. The structure: Two friends—both artists featured in the exhibition—deliver a performance lecture, intimately examining the use of language in each other’s practices. And some photos (all by Walter Wlodarczyk)
In our talk, I expressed shame that I am not one of those friends who do unstructured activities like brunching — I need a task; it’s just who I am. It was such a relief to be reminded that friendships do not all need to look the same. In my journey to understand my relationships, broadly, I know that I grow intimacy through active collaboration. My best friend is my best friend because we have grown close by collaborating on music and video works. When I look at the other parts of my ecosystem, we write together, we yap together, we publish together. My language of intimacy is deep study and trance-like making. I have always been this way, but was terrified to admit that I need structure. Yes, I am 40. If you invite me over, I will ask, what’s on the agenda? And if there is no agenda, I love parallel play — just sitting in the room with someone I love is enough for me :)
In my return to romantic partnership, this has also been a hard reminder. I will have an Excel sheet of activities I want to do together. We can eat a quick taco, but I really just want an adventure or activity. I will do debriefs; I am always curious to see how people are experiencing their time with me, to ensure we are aligned, or to identify any misalignment that could be generative. I'm not sure I want to be married again, but if that happens, I’d want separate homes. I know this makes me an odd one, limiting my partnership prospects, but again, I am 40 and do not have time to be anyone but myself.
My mouth has been an expensive body part this year. Unfortunately, it isn’t a vestigial feature. Teeth pulled, Invisalign, and more teeth rearranged. Goodness. All I do is yap, so I have to take care of this goofy orifice.
I told myself that June would be my month of pleasure, expansion, and frolicking. I could only afford a month, given deadlines and travel commitments.
Anyone who knows me even tangentially knows I am just not outside. Part of that is just that I don’t like crowds and unstructured activities. The other part of that is that I have just been too busy. Since January, I have opened a solo show and five group shows (more on this soon), with much of it new work (which I am quite proud of), delivered a bunch of public talks, and taught full-time. When I finally get a moment to slow down, the last thing I want to do is be outside. I want to be in my bed with a cup of tea, a nectarine, and a Benadryl to counteract the effects of the nectarine I am allergic to but eat anyway because being allergic to most fruit feels aggressively hateful.
So what did I do in June?
walked a lot
attended a virtual lecture on spies
went to a friend’s panel
saw Laraaji live
ate Korean tacos
got really into New Jersey club and house music
went to a poetry reading as a guest and ended up reading some impromptu poems in a constrained writing approach I am developing — should I publish these poems somewhere? I am just going to put them here. Actually, I do not know if they are poems. They are activated compost piles. Back in 2023, I was invited to a poetry reading. I was the last reader, which meant listening was not enough stimulus, so I had to do something else with my hands. I started collecting words from each poet and then challenged myself to turn them into something before they finished. Then, when I read, I shared what I created:
A self-sufficient God does not care about your analog sex or your neon composites. Just stay. The windows allow desire and discipline to overlap: the radio thickens around a punk airspace. (after J)
I exist as an XXXXXXXXXXXX, but I am more than a mess; I am a boring dance crawling toward some rehearsal for a chance at pure gluttony yet to be seen. I am possessed by a harmony of five triangles, and my mouth is shuffling between different ghosts whispering a secret text. A black prayer folds itself into a position of before, and I learn that a duet that spreads like milk just wants attention. I am sorry, but I can only interpret at the edge because I have not been optimized. I pledge allegiance to an alien that has the vision. (after E)
[All bolded words come directly from the poet; the syntax is my “own” as much as one can have their “own” in this epistemic entanglement we sometimes refuse to acknowledge]
Maybe that is the name of this “method” is something like activating compost or something along the lines of what Bhanu Kapil describes in the beginning of Schizophrene:
Some notes from that day in a random garden in LES, where folks gathered to read I. (after K) A blue dream is a theater for study The breeze in motion marks the calendar An ant appears as a cop with hands, equal to the hole in the sky II. (after K) A fleshy machine blurs my vision Spiders return in protest of our casual approximations III. (after R) A correcting vibration IV. (after Y) I forget the damage of holes Confused brains do not suffer, but unreliable hands do V. (after Z) I braid your face to make a home A thick mirror is nested in a cabinet A circle has no seams, but it etches red rings into the smoke I shroud. God feed me mirrors I swell. God sheds me of my labor I sit at your hem. God, o God Water my mouth, flood it with the voices of the dead Make me soft, but not worn, VI. (after A) Go away in pain, but return yellowed and itchy VII. (after L) unspool the sky
I’ve been collecting words and writing things for a bit now. Check out my gift me a word project. Also, conjure a new sentence. I used Python to tokenize each sentence in Clarice Lispector’s Agua Viva. From there, writers can reorganize a sentence into a new sentence! Go play!
I want to make more games like this (shout out to the AfroLudix class I took in April/May and being offered again (take it!) — for getting me back into making lo-fi playthings.
I am writing a lot about methods these days. Not that I do not care about what is made, but I can confidently say that I am enthralled by how we arrive at habits, routines, and expected forms.
I have been grappling with my relationship to non-compliance and rules for my entire life because of the “autistic urge” to ask WHY, even when presented with the most mundane rule. I am not challenging your authority (well, sometimes, I am); I just want the lore for how you got here. This is a hard articulation for a “visual artist,” where the product's visibility is the regime. But what if I want to make work that considers methods for dehabituation? That is when I make something, I am not making it just because I like how it looks, I am making it because I am curious about how an unexpected (and sometimes unrewarded) misalignment has other possibilities — that I like dissonance, discrepency, and misalignment because they invite new ethics of looking and meaning-making. When I talk about experimental poetics, I am here for the aesthetics, but I also think about this as rehearsal — that if we can break the grammar of a paragraph, then…"? I speak about this a little bit during a BOMB interview from 2025:
While yapping with a new friend recently, we began down this road of edges and sites. Anthony shared his wall label text, and then we took off:
a substrate for otherwise? (guys, we need another word — help!)
took a poetry workshop at UDP
attended a class to learn how to make my own projector
took an improv intensive and graduated from level 1
performed improv
ate dumplings somewhere
learned about electron guns in CRT and analog video art
played with lasers
spent an ungodly amount of time in Bushwick
watched Birdbox (I have questions)
watched Hereditary (again, I have questions)
began to teach myself calculus
asked myself whether non-human beings like dogs have names for one another in the way that humans do
learned about the soul theorem
contemplated getting a cat (to get the mouse, see list item #5)
contemplated getting locs (I didn’t – Thando said I am not built for the maintenance)
slammed my nipple in a cabinet (the mechanics of this remain lost on me)
met some of my internet faves at the SFPC graduation
went to the Bones Museum in Gowanus
had a delicious fried fish sandwich (I am thinking about it now)
went to cafes most mornings to work and developed a financially untenable obsession with dirty chia latters and this avocado toast with smoked salmon, unnamed nuts, and unnamed spicy sauce
went to a friend’s birthday party and took sunset photos on the roof while we ate cake
made a few new friends
ate a kimchi breakfast burrito
made some terribly sounding music
bought a new pair of Birkenstock sandals
had a terrible day of pollen allergy irritation
annoyingly bounced between four books of no relation: a history of the CIA and Charles Manson, a dark romance that was a little too spicy for me, a hard sci-fi book recommended by a new friend in Toronto, and random space stuff
This was my first real New York City summer in the 15 years I have lived here. I have always worked or had some other commitment during the summer. It is nice to relearn the city. It’s cute. I wish I had journaled throughout this, but I was amazingly present and rarely took photos.
I am sure I am missing a lot, but in the spirit of completion over perfection, here it is! If I missed something, please let me know, lol. Thanks for reading. And believe it or not, I have already drafted the next two newsletters. I am looking forward to a slower rest of the year and more writing. I miss writing.
Thanks for being a pal!
All the best, always,
Kameelah 👽
