Kameelah Janan Rasheed is a learner* from East Palo Alto, CA

The series on view here, entitled Spirit, incorporates abstract shapes, markings, and gestures that border on visual glossolalia, asemics, and automatic writing. To create this series of prints, Rasheed has painted and written directly onto the surface of leader film, then photographed these semi-wet compositions while jostling them under the light of a lo-fi digital film scanner. The materiality of wet pigment and the gestures of movement result in photographs that dance between different registers of legibility. Focusing on covert spiritual and revolutionary practices of the South and the Caribbean, Rasheed engages with elements of spirit photography, translation, and dreams to create a constellation of images that consider the limits of legibility.

Listen Until You Hear; Fotografiska New York (2023)

Photo Credit: Dario Lasagni

i am not done yet; Kunstverein Hannover (2022)

Photo Credit: Raimund Zakowski

Prospect 5: Yesterday we said tomorrow; New Orleans African American Museum (2021)

Photo Credit: John Cotto