March 2023: One Work (Pt. 2) 'i am not done yet' New Mousse Publication
new advice column; new books; translation; dirty data; legacy russell; zora neale hurston
Bismillah. We begin everything with the name of Allah. We say Bismillah to initiate an act to acknowledge the intention and the ethics we carry with all that follows Bismillah.
As I shared in March 2023: One Work Deep Dive (Pt. 1), I will use the newsletter throughout the year for the usual shenanigans and deeper dives into individual works, projects, and series.
New Thang: You Should Definitely Always Never Follow This Advice
My mama and I are adding a humorous advice column to our newsletter! Called You Should Definitely Always Never Follow This Advice, we will respond in writing and audio to the reader’s questions. Our first issue is out in late-April post-Ramadan! If you’d like to ask a question, send it here!
Now, I am sure some of y’all are like, but girl, you struggle to get these newsletters out, so why are you adding more!? I do not entirely disagree, lol. And with ADHD, I must be mindful of the dopamine hit that is just starting things! Believe it or not, I removed many things off my plate to create more opportunities to collaborate with my family. My modifications are in place! And more from the Rasheed clique in the coming future!
Deep Dive!
Second up: My new book with Mousse publications! Y’all know I looooove making books. You can see all my publications here. Later in 2023, as part of my solo exhibition at KW Institute, I will publish another book. Stay tuned! Below are some of my first books from ages 6 and 7.
And to learn more about my book practice, watch this keynote from the 2022 Contemporary Artists’ Book Conference as part of the Printed Matter Art Book Fair.
This new book is a monographic catalog on the occasion of my solo at Kunstverein Hannover.
Thank you to Sven, the fabulous designer. Thank you to Sergey Harutoonian for the fantastic curation of the show and the general amazingness of coordinating a six-room show during a pandemic over Zoom! Thank you, Kathleen Rahn, for the additional introductory text and institutional support! Last, and certainly not least, thank you to Luca and Olga at NOME gallery. I have been with them for the past few years, and I appreciate their attention to detail and focus on giving me space to play in my practice.
Buy it here.
2022
English / German
160 pages
Softcover, 24 cm x 29 cm
ISBN 9788867494989
€ 40 / $ 45
Enjoy an excerpt from my conversation with curator and writer Legacy Russell.
”I have a complicated relationship with translation, particularly because I’m thinking about the ways in which some things shouldn’t be translated. They were experienced in a particular language, through a particular medium, or within a particular sacred context. What is then translated is the residue of that experience, of that sentence, of that ceremony that can find its way into a tangible form. And that tangible form still isn’t the thing. It is a stand-in, an approximation—and maybe a really troubling one.
I think that translation does show up in terms of conversations around the ethics of what you have the right to research and establish proximity to. Just because you’re interested in something doesn’t mean you get to study it, probe it, seek it. When I’m approaching my work and trying to think about the scene that I’m seeing and translating, and making things apparent to people, I am less invested in making things apparent to people and more invested in sort of thinking about how people are approaching that tense moment of something, of desiring something that is unseen, to become seen in ways that are easy and legible.”
Kameelah Janan Rasheed: I am not done yet
“When I think about the density of language, I imagine the material presence
of the language in space. But I also hope there is acknowledgment that no sentence is a simple sentence. Every sentence holds meaning, exceeds meaning, moves in different directions simultaneously.” — Kameelah Janan Rasheed
A learner, Kameelah Janan Rasheed (she/they), grapples with the poetics-pleasures-politics of Black knowledge production, information technologies and belief formation. Her work looks at knowledge and how it is created, embodied, stored, cataloged, hidden, learned, and also unlearned, with particular focus on facets of incompleteness, information (il)legibility and the use of seemingly error-ridden image and text data.
Rasheed works primarily with paper and vinyl that she attaches to walls and public spaces, creating what she describes as “ecosystems of iterative and provisional projects.” Based on a 1974 poem of the same name by American writer Lucille Clifton, her exhibition “i am not done yet” deals with questions of incomplete knowledge and continuous learning through “Black storytelling” and “Islamic mysticism.” At the same time, the titular sentence “i am not done yet” can also be understood as an assertive, declarative statement in its own right.
This artist book is published on the occasion of Kameelah Janan Rasheed’s first-ever institutional exhibition in Germany at Kunstverein Hannover in 2022.
Edited by Kunstverein Hannover, Texts by Sergey Harutoonian, Kathleen Rahn, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Legacy Russell
How to cite this newsletter: Rasheed, K. (Year, Month Day). Newsletter Title. I Will (?) Figure This All Out Later. URLThank you for reading,
Kameelah 👽