Kameelah Janan Rasheed: A More Convenient Season
Thursday, December 8, 2016
6 to 8pm
Kameelah Janan Rasheed, How Long?, 2016. [Image Description: On a white print there are words written in black. At the top it begins “mother’s time, my uncle’s time, my brother’s time, and my sister’s time, my nieces and my nephew’s time.” Then the question “How much time do you want for your progress?” is underlined with a large white space beneath it. Then towards the bottom of the print is a black line with the question “do you want for your progress?” mirrored upside down and the question “do you want for your progress?” mirrored below it. Below the questions is an abstract black shape, almost like an ink spill.]
Kameelah Janan Rasheed presented a new performance/lecture on constructions of racial progress in America, opening up a discursive space to examine the tensions between perceived and actual progress. She drew on texts from her new series of prints, on view in Enacting Stillness, which feature lyrics and writing by Nina Simone, James Baldwin, and other figures who consider the temporal politics of liberation.
Bio
Kameelah Janan Rasheed (b. 1985, East Palo Alto, CA) is an artist, writer, and former public school social studies teacher. A 2006 Amy Biehl U.S. Fulbright Scholar to South Africa, Rasheed holds an Ed.M (2008) in Secondary Education from Stanford University as well as a BA (2006) in Public Policy and Africana Studies from Pomona College. She has exhibited her work at Jack Shainman Gallery, Studio Museum in Harlem, Bronx Museum, Queens Museum, BRIC Art Gallery, Weeksville Heritage Museum, Smack Mellon Gallery, Vox Populi Gallery, MoCADA, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The Leroy Neiman Gallery, and the Soap Factory, among others.
Currently, she is an Artist-in-Residence at Smack Mellon and on faculty at SVA. Selected residencies, fellowships, and honors include: Creative Exchange Lab at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (2016), Keyholder Residency at Lower East Side Print Studio (2015), Commissioned Artist, Triple Canopy Commissions at New York Public Library Labs (2015), Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue Grant (2015), A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship (2015), Queens Museum Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship (2015), Process Space Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Residency (2015), Artist in the Marketplace - Bronx Museum Participant (2015), Art Matters Grantee (2014), Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grantee (2014), New Museum R&D: Choreography Seminar Participant (2014), Vermont Studio Center Residency (2014), and Working Classroom Teaching Artist (2014). http://www.kameelahr.com/